


opprobrium

by taywen



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Emperor!Corvo, Gen, Medium Chaos (Dishonored), Mute!Jessamine, Roleswap, Royal Protector!Jessamine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-11-30 23:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 61,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11474109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taywen/pseuds/taywen
Summary: In an Empire where Serkonos rules over the other Isles, Royal Protector Jessamine Kaldwin can only watch helplessly as her charge, Emperor Corvo Attano, is murdered by an assassin whose face is chillingly familiar.Framed for the murder of her Emperor and lover, and sentenced to death for her supposed crime, Jessamine is saved the day before her execution by a group calling themselves the Loyalists. A handful of disgraced officers and disillusioned elites, they want to see Corvo’s rightful heir, his daughter Emilia, inherit the throne. But they need Jessamine to remove the Regent’s supporters first— and despite the fact that Jessamine knew some of them before she and Corvo were betrayed, she does not know if she can trust their intentions now.





	1. opprobrium

**Author's Note:**

> a massive thank you to everyone who provided help and encouragement while I was working on this project:
> 
> to **marvellousfacebear** for their stunning [art](http://marvellousfacebear.tumblr.com/post/163608346604/he-threw-her-out-on-the-street-when-her-skin-grew); to **carvedwhalebones** for hosting the big bang; and to **estora** , **reina** and **kess** for their suggestions and cheerleading. THANK YOU. this project would not exist without you.  <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **opprobrium**  
>  _noun_  
>  1\. the disgrace or the reproach incurred by conduct considered outrageously shameful; infamy.

Every night was the same as the one before it, filled with nightmares of the worst day of Jessamine’s life. She could barely recall the scant moments of happiness, reunited with her lover and their daughter, that led up to Corvo’s death. The part of that memory etched indelibly into her mind was the short minutes that followed, as her world crumbled around her.

The assassins came out of nowhere, appearing on the balcony overlooking the bay with only an unnatural hiss of displaced air to herald their arrival.

Jessamine was the first to react, shoving Corvo aside as she drew her sword to meet the first assassin’s strike. Their swords clashed together as they exchanged blows, Jessamine keeping them at bay and trying to prevent the other two assassins from moving past her to reach Corvo or Emilia. There was some strange ornamentation running midway up the length of the assassins’ blades, but Jessamine was too focused on the fight at hand to examine it more closely.

Their blades locked, Jessamine glaring into the eyes of her opponent. The lower half of their face was hidden by a scarf tucked into the collar of their jacket, but Jessamine could see the way their eyes widened as she won the contest of strength, shoving the assassin off balance and using the moment of vulnerability to open their throat with a slash of her blade.

The spray of blood disappeared into ash before it splattered against her, along with the assassin’s body. Jessamine didn’t spare the time to dwell on it, drawing her pistol and firing into the space where the assassin’s body had been scant seconds before. That first shot took the next assassin in the chest; the last fell to a head shot. Both bodies disappeared in the same manner as the first.

The ringing in her ears from the gunshots faded slowly. Dimly, she heard Corvo step up to her side.

(Corvo had swept his hands down her arms, from shoulder to wrist as his eyes roved over her, checking that she was unharmed. Emilia had hovered at his side, her eyes wide but dry.

He’d said something to her— thanked her, perhaps, or asked if she was hurt. But the dream always skipped over those tense seconds as her heart rate and breathing slowed and she’d leaned into Corvo’s touch, tucking her pistol away to lay a hand against Emilia’s soft hair.

She should have told them to run inside and call for the Grand Guard, but she hadn’t, she _hadn’t_ and—)

As soon as the last of the ash dispersed into the air, the leader of the assassins appeared with reinforcements. One of them gestured and an unnatural green force surrounded her, pulling her away even as she tried to block the leader from coming any closer.

“Daddy!” Emilia cried, her voice high with fear, as Corvo went for the knife at his belt.

The assassin sneered, one of their subordinates snatching Emilia up in their arms. She struggled furiously, kicking and scratching and even trying to bite at any part of her assailant she could reach, but the thick material of their jacket prevented her from doing any real harm.

Jessamine could only watch, helpless, as the assassin advanced on Corvo.

“Don’t touch her!” Corvo shouted, not even watching the true threat, his attention taken entirely by his daughter. The blade in his hand was forgotten.

(Jessamine had cried out as well, but she no longer remembered what she’d said. It had been useless, in any case.)

“No—!” Emilia screamed as the assassin drove their blade between Corvo’s ribs, straight through his heart.

Jessamine didn’t notice the pain that jarred up her knees as the assassins released her, disappearing and taking Emilia with them in between one blink and the next. She dragged herself over to Corvo, her hands slipping uselessly against the soaked fabric of his shirt as she tried futilely to stem the flow of his life’s blood.

(What had he said to her? What had she said in return? She couldn’t remember.)

Jessamine cried, tears leaking freely down her cheeks as she held her Emperor, her lover, the father of her child, in her arms as he gasped out his last breaths. That moment always seemed to last forever, what in reality took a matter of minutes dragging out into an eternity within the throes of her nightmare. Corvo, perpetually breathing his last. Jessamine, vainly trying to save him, or at least give him some comfort before he slipped away.

As always, she failed.

* * *

Jessamine woke gasping for breath, animal cries of fear and pain wrenching out of her throat. She silenced herself as soon as she was aware of it, biting hard at the inside of her cheek.

The nightmares were always the same, but she never became accustomed to them.

She sat up slowly, rubbing at her eyes with the heel of one palm. At least none of the guards had come to watch her toss and cry out in her sleep. After six months’ confinement in Sofocaverno Prison, the novelty had worn off.

She leaned her back against the wall and drew her knees up to her chest, ignoring how the curled position made the wounds inflicted by the Torturer ache. There was no comfort to be had in this dusty, dry cell, only different flavours of agony. She felt constantly on the edge of utter dehydration, to the point that she hardly noticed it any longer. Her body was in pain no matter how she sat or laid down on the slab of stone that passed as a bed.

Jessamine closed her eyes, breathing evenly until her heart rate went down. She listened as Sofocaverno slowly stirred to life, the smaller night shift of guards making way for the day shift, whose task was to oversee the prisoners on their daily sentence in the mines. Guards and inmates alike walked or shuffled past the bars of her cell, but no one stopped to harass her.

She drifted, not asleep but not entirely awake either. Gradually, the sounds faded again as the prison’s population went into the mines.

“Get up.”

The harsh words startled Jessamine, though her body ached too much for her to so much as twitch in surprise. Her gaze darted to the officer standing on the other side of the bars, but she made no move to comply.

The man looked familiar, though she couldn’t put a name to his face. Not one of the usual guards _Lady Regent_ Guerra had escorting her to and from the interrogation room. They always came in pairs or trios now, though Jessamine was hardly in any condition to resist them in her current state; when she’d first been arrested, though—

“ _Up_ , Jess,” the officer said, low and urgent. “Unless you intend to wait quietly for tomorrow’s execution.”

Jessamine sneered up at him, barely noticing the pain as her lip split open again. What was one more little cut on top of the multitude of injuries inflicted by the torturer?

The officer glanced up and down the deserted cell block, his composure fracturing further in the face of her defiance. There wasn’t anyone to see him struggling, though; the other prisoners had already been taken for their daily shift in the silver mine, so the guards patrolled past here infrequently. They weren’t due for at least half an hour.

“Fucking Gristolian—” The officer glared at her and shoved a thick envelope between the bars. It fell to the stone floor with a surprisingly loud clunk. He snarled in frustration when she made no move to take it, and stalked away.

Jessamine waited until the sound of his footsteps had faded before uncurling, moving carefully to avoid exacerbating her injuries. The envelope was made of heavy, expensive paper. There was nothing written on the front, and it was unsealed. She opened it, her eyes widening at the sight of its contents: a key, identical to the ones that opened the doors to the cells, a scrap of cloth, and an unsigned letter.

She had to read the letter twice, just to make the meaning sink in; even then, she couldn’t have brought herself to believe it, but for the key clutched in her other hand.

“Ready to go now?”

Jessamine did flinch then, the letter crumpling in her grasp; she’d been so absorbed in reading that she hadn’t heard the officer’s approach. An inexcusable lapse.

She nodded once, still wary of a trick. The man was about her height, but broader in the shoulder; his gut strained at the belt, speaking of more time spent at a desk than on patrol or on the practice field. His sword hung at his side, and he made no move to draw it when she unlocked the cell door. Taking him down was definitely an option, though not before he made a racket and drew other guards to them.

Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary. He gestured impatiently at her face, and she tied the scrap of cloth around the back of her head. It smelled like old sweat, but compared to the prison’s ambient stench it was nothing more than a brief annoyance. With her face mostly-hidden, she could be mistaken for any prisoner trying to avoid inhaling too much dust from the mines during their shift.

“Take this.” A knife lay lengthwise across his palm, gleaming dully in the light. It didn’t look particularly sharp, or well cared for. “And don’t even think about using it on me. I won’t go down quiet.”

Jessamine glared at him but took the blade, tucking it into the waistband of her trousers. The metal was cool against her skin, a comforting weight that seemed to prove, more than anything else, that this was really happening. Someone out there believed that she was innocent, despite Guerra’s lies.

* * *

Sofocaverno was built in the remains of the old silver mine, its twisting corridors the tunnels dug by long-dead miners. The prison was situated near the surface, its structure reinforced by wood and metal to prevent cave-ins, but the rest of the tunnels had only been haphazardly sealed off - even if a prisoner managed to escape, the odds of them finding a way of escaping through those tunnels were negligible.

Some of the more superstitious prisoners claimed that the mine had been here long before the settlement that would become Karnaca. That if you followed the abandoned shafts deeper beneath the earth, eventually you’d stumble into the Void itself - assuming suffocation, poisonous gas, a tunnel collapse or some other hazard didn’t do you in first.

Jessamine didn’t put much stock in those beliefs. Sofocaverno was obviously an abandoned mine, modified after the fact to hold Karnaca’s criminal population, but it didn’t seem that ancient, and its supposed connection to the Void was laughable. Still, as she ventured deeper into the main tunnel, away from the cells and the light and other people, she felt a frisson of unease that she swiftly quashed.

The letter had contained precise instructions to reach a collapsed mineshaft that breached the surface; one of the Loyalists’ men would be waiting at the top to help her escape. It was an oversight that the Jessamine of two years earlier would have disapproved of, but that was before the rat plague had struck Karnaca and all the misfortune that followed. Now she was simply grateful that for all the times she’d inspected the prison, the potential escape route had somehow gone unnoticed. Or perhaps it had not even existed then. Tunnel collapses weren’t uncommon.

Jessamine took another swig from the canteen of water that she’d swiped from the guards’ mess hall. The bit of soup that she’d managed to get down sat heavily in her stomach, which had become accustomed to a tiny ration of gruel every second day or so; or perhaps the mild nausea was from Sokolov’s Health Elixir, which was as unpleasant as she remembered for all that she could no longer taste it. At least the Elixir had caused her smaller injuries to close up completely, and gone a ways to healing the more serious wounds. The pain she felt now was so minor as to be non-existent compared to what it had been before.

Just as the creeping paranoia that she was lost and condemned to wander the labyrinth of tunnels for what hours she had left was really setting in, Jessamine spotted a crude rendition of the Attano crest painted on the wall of the tunnel opposite a pile of rubble. It was just as the letter had said: the collapsed mineshaft had to be nearby. She stifled the impulse to run toward it, keeping her pace measured and quiet as she approached.

The tunnel continued without interruption in both directions, no branching paths within sight. Jessamine shone her lantern cautiously around the area, her ears straining for any sounds of pursuit; apart from the soft sounds she made, it was completely silent. She swiped impatiently at the sweat beading down her forehead before it could reach her eyes; the air down here was even more stifling than it was in the prison proper.

She glanced at the crest again. The paint had run in places, rendering the four-pointed symbol into something more likely to be found in one of Emilia’s sketchbooks than adorning the banners around Karnaca. As she stared, Jessamine realized that the topmost key was actually an arrow. When she aimed the beam of her lantern in that direction, she saw that a shaft extended upward at an almost completely vertical angle.

Jessamine indulged in several moments of fury, glaring up into the darkness. The letter had claimed she could climb out through the abandoned shaft, but Jessamine had assumed she’d be clambering over a bit of rubble, not hauling herself straight up a Void-forsaken crevasse. The shaft was small, perhaps large enough to fit two reasonably small people. Six months’ imprisonment and torture, coupled with infrequent meals and the sweltering heat that seldom let up had left Jessamine with little, if any, excess weight and muscle tone, so fitting into the small space wouldn’t be a problem— but she didn’t know if she was strong enough to make it all the way up.

The alternative was to turn back around, hope that she’d be able to navigate the directions in reverse and lock herself back in her cell— assuming the dead guards she’d left in her wake and her empty cell hadn’t been noticed yet. And even if she made it back unnoticed, her execution was still scheduled for tomorrow. Which was no alternative at all.

Jessamine gritted her teeth, hooked the lantern onto the belt she’d taken from one of the guards, and started to climb.

* * *

The shaft only grew narrower the higher she climbed; Jessamine couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse. In the tunnel below, as the ceiling had sloped lower and lower, the imagined pressure of all that rock over her head had been difficult to ignore; with the rock pressing in on all sides now, scraping at her body and reopening the wounds that the dose of elixir had closed, that claustrophobic feeling resurged tenfold. But the closeness meant she could jam her feet into cracks and juts and lean back against the rock, giving her aching hands much-needed rest. And at least if she fell, her descent would be slow enough that she could catch herself on something.

But if she didn’t catch herself, the impact probably wouldn’t be enough to assure her a swift death either.

Jessamine forced those thoughts away; they were useless to her now, as useless as she’d been the day the assassin appeared. If she didn’t get out of here, the assassin and Guerra would likely go unpunished, unless her so-called friends - her budding affection for them had cooled as soon as she’d begun to climb - managed to do something even without her.

At least the Torturer hadn’t broken her fingers recently; then she really would have been stuck. A laugh rose in her throat; it would have been tinged with hysteria had she let it escape, but she kept her teeth clenched as she peered up the shaft. The lantern was starting to dim as its store of whale oil depleted; but it kept catching on protruding bits of rock as she climbed, becoming more of a hindrance as time passed and the shape of tunnel ensured that the light couldn’t shine on her next handhold, so leaving it behind wouldn’t be such a hardship.

The only way forward was through. Jessamine flexed her shaking, aching hands and shifted her weight, reaching above her head to continue hauling herself up and up and up—

* * *

By degrees, the air began to taste fresher. Jessamine didn’t notice at first, the makeshift bandanna plastered to the lower half of her face by sweat. But then the rock began to transition into hard-packed soil, making the climb all the more treacherous. She sobbed with relief, a wounded and ragged sound, when the first ray of sunlight blinded her. Her hands were slick with sweat and blood, scraped raw; she’d had to basically dig herself through a few inches of rubble, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might burst.

The moments of terror that had followed her thinking she’d found the wrong shaft, or that the earth had shifted and closed off her only way to freedom, were ones she had no wish to revisit. With a light breeze stirring her hair, and the faintest strains of birdsong reaching her ears, she pushed those memories aside and climbed onward with renewed determination, a surge of vigour giving strength to her weak and trembling body.

The shaft opened up as it emerged from the ground; she flinched as footsteps paced closer, pressing herself against the stone as if that could hide her from whoever was approaching.

A man peered over the edge, his face drawn with worry; his eyes widened at the sight of her, and he dropped to his knees, one hand extending down toward her. She was too far for him to reach even had she tried to meet his grip, which she did not.

“Jess— Lady Jess, I’m a friend,” he said. He offered her a smile that seemed genuine, if nervous, when she only stared up at him. “Please, I have clothes and bandages and food and water here. We should be away as soon as possible.”

Jessamine looked away, though she kept her head angled so she could see if he tried to move, and searched for the next handhold. The man clasped her wrist in a tight grip as soon as she came within reach, hauling her the rest of the way up. She grabbed her knife with her other hand, though the limb protested being forced to grip the hilt, and her skin was so slick with blood that she was as likely to drop the thing as wield it correctly.

They collapsed on the slope together, Jessamine eyeing him warily as she gasped for breath. The man’s gaze darted to her blade; he gulped visibly, but made no move to attack or disarm her.

“I— I’ll grab the water. You must be parched.” He stood slowly and walked with a slightly unsteady gait towards a plain bag laying against the trunk of a nearby tree.

She had emerged on a cliff, the edge dropping off several metres away through the trees. She could see the bay from this angle, but not the sprawl of Karnaca at its shores. She wanted to see it, but her protesting body could do little more than hold up her head and maintain a tight grip on her knife. The sun was high overhead, just past its zenith and beginning its descent towards the horizon; checking the time hadn’t been a pressing concern when she’d begun her escape, but it could only have been mid-morning when the officer gave her the key to her cell.

She must have spent hours climbing up that Void-forsaken shaft, but she was _free_.

The man returned, crouching an arm’s length away and holding out a full canteen for her to take. She snatched it up, fumbling with clumsy fingers at the cap. The knife was forgotten in her haste to have water.

“May I—” The man winced, obviously uncomfortable with the sight of her struggling. Jessamine held it out, but resisted when he tried to take it from her. He bit his lip and shuffled a step closer, carefully unscrewing the cap without touching her hand once.

Jessamine tore off the ragged strip of cloth around her face and put the canteen to her lips, uncaring of the water that spilled past her mouth. She only stopped when she began to splutter from drinking too quickly. Two months without her tongue and she still wasn’t entirely accustomed to its absence; she never forgot herself and tried to speak - she hadn’t uttered a single word for months before Guerra had it cut out - but the complication of consuming food and drink remained.

“Oh,” the man breathed, looking even more distressed.

Jessamine clamped down on her coughing, raising a hand to cover her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” the man stammered, glancing back at the bag of supplies. “Mister St— My master only sent fruit and bread, I don’t know if you can—”

Jessamine shook her head. She didn’t want to eat now anyway; she felt full enough from the canteen of water she’d just downed.

“We’ll find something for you back home. Broth, maybe, or gruel— Not gruel,” the man said, catching sight of Jessamine’s grimace. His gaze darted over the length of her body, but it was coloured only with concern. “I’ve got a change of clothes as well. There’s not much in the way of privacy, but I’ll turn my back.” He went back to the bag, rifling through it for a moment before tossing it in her direction and then walking to the edge of the cliff to give her some space.

Jessamine dragged the sack closer, peering inside while keeping one eye on the man. There was the food that he’d mentioned, the sight of it making her stomach cramp from hunger; she ignored the pain and kept looking, pulling out a pair of dark trousers, a white shirt that would have fit her six months ago but would probably hang off her frame now, and a dark blue coat similar enough in cut and colour to her Royal Protector’s uniform that her eyes began to sting.

“We should be going soon, Lady Jess,” the man said. His back was still turned to her when she glanced up. “But I reckon we have a few more minutes before the master and the others’ll really start fretting.”

Jessamine made a sound that she hoped conveyed her acknowledgment, though it sounded like little more than a dumb grunt to her ears. She took a few deep breaths, setting the clothes aside to deal with afterward. The last item in the bag was a bundle of bandages; after rinsing off with a bit of water, she wrapped her ruined hands as best as she could, clumsily tying off the knots with her free hand and her teeth.

No belt had been provided, but the one she’d stolen from a dead guard worked well enough to keep her trousers from falling off. Ill-fitting as the coat was, it still felt like a second skin, a layer of armour against the challenges ahead of her. The collar wasn’t quite right, and the decorative trim that she’d always found irritating was absent entirely, but something in her eased when she put it on.

She stuffed everything else into the bag and stood, fumbling to sling it over her shoulder. The man turned as she approached, obviously relieved.

“I can take the bag, Lady Jess,” he offered. After a moment, she held it out for him. “Guess we should be off— Oh! I’m Jaime, by the way. Jaime Carrera.” His hand twitched upward in an aborted motion to shake her hand before he obviously thought better of it.

Jessamine nodded, quirking one corner of her mouth up in a faint smile. The expression wasn’t entirely sincere, but this man - Jaime - had helped her escape Sofocaverno and she hoped to communicate some measure of her gratitude and relief.

Jaime smiled back, tentative but not nearly so nervous. It was a start.


	2. allegiant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **allegiant**  
>  _adjective_  
>  1\. loyal; faithful.

The walk down the slope was much easier than climbing out of the tunnel, a fact for which Jessamine was grateful. Jaime’s slower gait - he must have been in some kind of accident, or perhaps he’d been born with the limp - was a boon as well. If she’d had to exert herself any further, her body probably would have given out.

She couldn’t question Jaime about the state of the city, or how the rat plague was progressing, or even interrogate him about his master and the others involved in helping her escape. Without resorting to scratching her questions into the dirt or attempting to pantomime, Jessamine didn’t have any means of communicating with him. That inability was frustrating, but she couldn’t imagine their destination didn’t have paper and a writing tool; she’d have her answers soon enough.

As they descended toward Karnaca proper, Jessamine got her first look at the city as they neared the edge of the forest. The trees closer to the city had been cut down for lumber, but with the harnessing of the winds and the advent of whale oil, most of the forest surrounding the capital remained untouched. Batista District spread out below them, streets and streets of homes and businesses and other buildings that should have been full of people.

The streets were empty. Batista was partitioned off by metal walls that extended beyond the tallest buildings at the edge of the district. At first she thought the raised rail line was another wind tunnel, but it wasn’t perched quite so high off the ground; as she watched, a string of carts rattled down the tracks, disappearing around Point Batista to some unknown destination in Clemente Landing.

Which was burning. Huge plumes of smoke rose from beyond the ridge, obscuring any sight of the old quarter. She hadn’t noticed it at first, too distracted by the fresh air, but there was a smoky tinge to it that she couldn’t ignore now.

Jessamine made a sound of alarm, staring in blank incomprehension. The rat plague had struck Clemente Landing and Batista first, but surely the entire districts weren’t _dead_. Things hadn’t been this bad when she’d returned six months ago or Corvo would have made some mention of it—

“Oh.” Jaime winced. “About a month after His Majesty— passed, the Lady Regent instituted harsher quarantines and plague containment measures.”

Jessamine gestured sharply at what had once been Clemente Landing, unable to hide her horror.

“There was— little warning,” Jaime explained haltingly, glancing east and then away again. “The plague barriers went up first, locking the people of Clemente Landing in. Batista was next. The Santiago District is abandoned now too.” He bit his lip. “The rail line got built after she shut out the old quarter. It goes from Campo Seta to the silver mine and Clemente Landing. The miners have to work; they get paid with elixir rations. Only the rich can afford to buy it now. And the line to Clemente Landing is used to dump the bodies.”

Jessamine’s hands throbbed; they were shaking from how hard she had them clenched when she looked down. She was furious. Her throat ached with the need to scream, to rail against Guerra’s tyranny and utter disregard for human life. She swallowed it down, but it had never tasted quite so bitter before, fury curdling in her gut as she stared at the billowing smoke.

“They burn the bodies to keep the bloodflies down,” Jaime added quietly. “Once a week. Whale oil’s rationed to keep enough to burn. The natural philosophers and the physicians think the flies can carry the rat plague too.”

Jessamine stared for several minutes longer, her eyes stinging. The smoke in the air, surely.

“We should go on. Batista is abandoned, but anyone with a telescope can see us going down into the district from here,” Jaime said at length, gesturing at the grassy slope before them.

Jessamine cast a final glance at the smoke rising over the ridge, then looked forward again. Standing there gawking wouldn’t fix anything.

* * *

They slipped through a panel that had been cut out of the plague barrier, Jaime pausing to fix it back in place. At a glance, the wall looked impassable; Jessamine wondered how effective the installation of plague barriers across the city had been at containing the rat plague.

Given that it was spread by rats and bloodflies, probably not very. Some part of her was savagely pleased; it served Guerra right. But the rest of her ached for the people displaced or abandoned by the quarantines, left to fend for themselves and risk exposure to the disease.

The streets were eerily quiet. The only sound was the gusting of the wind and the turning of the mills. Jaime produced a pair of handkerchiefs for them to cover their mouths with as particularly strong gusts sent the silver dust whipping between the buildings, thick enough to choke and blind.

“Guerra’s got the mines working day and night,” Jaime said after a particularly bad storm. “I don’t know what she uses all that silver for; to pay Sokolov for more security devices, maybe.”

Jessamine frowned, though her expression was hidden by the handkerchief. She tapped Jaime on the shoulder to get his attention then pointed at the sign on the building beside them - one of Aramis Stilton’s offices.

“Ma— Mister Stilton was displaced too.” Jaime shook his head, his brow furrowed. “He’s staying with— a friend.”

Jessamine narrowed her eyes; the same friend who’d helped her escape? Was Stilton involved too?

“We’re almost there. Everything will be explained,” Jaime assured her, correctly interpreting her look. “I don’t know all of it, I’m just a humble caretaker.”

Jessamine studied him for a moment, then nodded.

She’d only had occasion to visit Batista a few times; Corvo had little cause to visit the poorer districts, though he was on good terms with Stilton. As a result, she was more familiar with places like the Aventa Quarter and the Palace District; as they walked through the streets, cutting through buildings and down alleys to circumvent the smaller barriers erected at random intersections, Jessamine quickly lost track of where they were.

A loud screech startled her. Jessamine had her knife out in an instant, looking around wildly for the threat.

“It’s just the loudspeaker. Only a few still work out here.” Jaime pointed at the speaker strung up above the street.

“Attention citizens of Karnaca,” the announcer’s voice blared from the loudspeaker, “the assassin, Jess, responsible for the murder of our fair Emperor and the disappearance of Lady Emilia, the heir to the throne, has temporarily escaped state custody—” The rest of the message was lost in a burst of static, ending with the same grating screech.

“Nearly there,” Jaime said again, his pace quickening slightly. Jessamine followed, finally recognizing a landmark as they reached Attano Square. A statue of the first Attano Emperor, Corvo’s father, Urratus, lay on its side in the centre. The far side of the square overlooked the rest of the city, but Jessamine resisted the urge to check. She didn’t want to be seen, and she wasn’t certain if she wanted to see what other changes had been wrought during Guerra’s short but brutal reign either.

The entrance to Aramis Stilton’s manor took up a good remaining portion of the square. The exterior was rather more elaborate than she recalled, the wrought iron fence and gate replaced by more solid construction that hid the manor house from the street. She didn’t bother to hide her surprise when Jaime led her towards it.

“Mister Stilton comes back here sometimes, when he needs to,” Jaime explained. He stopped in front of the gate and started fiddling with a series of ten rotating tiles set into the front of the gate. “Kirin made this lock. There was a riddle too, but A— but he wasn’t allowed to post it. He wasn’t very happy about it.”

Jessamine stared as Jaime flipped the tiles over in a seemingly random sequence. It didn’t look like a lock, but once each tile showed a unique name or symbol, there was the sound of a mechanism within the gate working and then the distinctive clunk of something unlocking.

“Took me a while to memorize the code.” Jaime smiled sheepishly. “Kirin used to change it every week but he isn’t allowed to anymore.”

Jessamine raised an eyebrow.

“He wasn’t very happy about that either,” Jaime agreed, pushing the gate open. He stepped aside, gesturing for Jessamine to go first.

She stepped through warily; some part of her was still expecting some kind of trick, although using someone of Jaime’s lowborn mannerisms and sincerity didn’t seem like Guerra’s style. But the entranceway was deserted, no guards waiting to take her back into state custody— if anything, the announcement earlier had convinced her that she had truly escaped, but it was still taking a while to sink in.

“Go on inside,” Jaime said. He had his back turned, intent on closing the gate behind them. “The others’re waiting to meet you, and I’m sure you could use a rest.”

Jessamine pulled off the handkerchief and waited until he’d turned around before offering him another smile. It still didn’t seem to sit properly on her face, but it felt more natural than the one she’d given him earlier.

“Aw, it was nothing, Lady Jess,” Jaime said bashfully. “Was nice to get a bit of fresh air.”

Jessamine nodded. The air beyond Sofocaverno was a welcome change, even tinged with the smoke from Clemente Landing.

“‘Sides, you did all the hard work.” Jaime shivered, despite the sun shining down on them. “I used to work in the mines but I never went through that.” He shook his head, as if to dispel the thought; Jessamine was happy to let the matter drop. If she never had to set foot underground again, it would still be too soon. “Mister Stilton’s waiting,” Jaime said again. “I reckon they’ll be in the dining room— You’ve been here before, haven’t you? Do you remember where it is?”

Jessamine had a few memories of events held at Stilton’s manor. The place had always been decked out with the latest trends and stocked with the most lavish delicacies. Stilton had been more concerned with what was in vogue than most nobles that she knew, and his attempts to remain abreast of current fashion meant nothing to those highborn fools he so desperately emulated. She’d always liked the man in spite of that; there were too few people born outside Serkonos - or even Karnaca - and not of noble stock in the upper echelons of Karnaca’s society.

She pointed at the left side of the house, though it was entirely possible Stilton had had the place renovated in another of his attempts to stay at the cutting edge of some trend or another.

“That’s right, at the end of the hall.”

Jessamine nodded to him again and headed inside.

* * *

All three of the men awaiting her in the dining room were familiar.

Daud froze when he saw her, cigar raised halfway to his mouth, his expression blank; probably shocked, if she knew him at all. (She’d thought she had known Guerra, but she’d been fooled. They’d all been fooled, if Daud’s presence here was any indication.)

Stilton was little better, staring at her in obvious surprise and growing distress as he took in her appearance. The fine clothes went a ways to hiding her poor physical state, but the bandages on her hands and the way the garments hung off her diminished frame were still obvious.

Curnow rose first, a few moments after she entered, his chair scraping across the floor. His face was pale beneath his tan, and he hurried around the table to her. “Outsider’s eyes,” he breathed. “You look—”

Jessamine raised an eyebrow, one corner of her mouth quirking upward before she could stop it.

“—like you’ve been to the Void and back,” he said, obviously switching tack at the last second. “Sit down, you must be starving! There’s food and drink—”

Jessamine sat carefully in the chair Curnow pulled out for her, maintaining perfect posture for a moment before slumping against the back. It was part of a carved set, no cushion to make the seat more comfortable, but it was almost as good as lying in the grass after Jaime had pulled her out of the mineshaft. She accepted the glass of water Stilton pushed in her direction, drinking with more care than she had before.

“We know you must be exhausted after all that you’ve been through, Jess,” Stilton began, “but there are a few things we thought we should discuss first, if you feel up to it.”

Jessamine took another sip of water, considering. She _was_ exhausted, but she wanted to hear what they had to say for themselves; she nodded for him to go on.

Stilton smiled, a little awkward but obviously sincere. “Well, I know we’re all glad that you arrived here safe and—” his gaze dropped to her hands for a moment, “—mostly intact.”

Jessamine toasted him with her water.

“And—”

“Why haven’t you said anything?” Daud’s harsh voice seemed harder than usual, but his expression was still blank when she glanced at him.

“Guerra didn’t— I heard from some of the guards that she’d threatened to have your tongue cut out but surely she didn’t—” Curnow looked at her beseechingly, as if he hoped she would prove him wrong.

It was crass and more than a little bit petty, but it was also the most efficient way to get the message across. Jessamine opened her mouth so they could see the ruined stub that was all that remained of her tongue.

Curnow winced; Stilton looked like he was going to be sick. A look of fury crossed Daud’s face, but it was gone as swiftly as it had come.

“I’ll find some paper— Can you still write?” Stilton was staring at her hands with renewed intensity.

Jessamine shrugged, then nodded. It would probably hurt like the Void, but was she physically capable? She would be, because she had questions and intended to get the answers before they ushered her to whatever room they had set aside for her.

A knock on the door sounded before Stilton could call for anyone, and Jaime came in when Stilton bade him to enter. He had several sheets of paper and a variety of writing utensils with him. He ducked his head and demurred when Stilton thanked him, slipping back out again once he’d delivered the items to Jessamine.

“Do you have any questions?” Stilton asked.

Jessamine picked up one of the pencils and set it to the first sheet of paper. The lead snapped off before she could finish the first word. She narrowed her eyes in annoyance and took up the fountain pen - gaudier than she might have liked, but hopefully less prone to breaking in her clumsy fingers.

“Take your time,” Stilton said encouragingly. Jessamine stifled the urge to glare at him, somehow.

 _Where is Emilia?_ Her writing was far from perfect, the letters unsteady and spotted with ink where she’d let the pen linger too long, but hopefully it would be legible.

“We don’t know.” The answer came from Daud. He had risen from his chair and come closer, leaning against the table next to Curnow to read her words. “We have some leads, but at the moment we’re stuck.” He glanced at Curnow, who frowned.

“I have a contact in the Oracular Order,” Curnow explained. “She thought that a high-ranking Sister was somehow involved in Emperor Corvo’s murder but she didn’t dare put the words to paper, even in code, in case our correspondence was discovered. We were supposed to meet up six days ago, so she could tell me the identity of this Sister but— she never made it. I received word of her imprisonment a few days ago.”

Jessamine frowned. She was less familiar with the Blind Sisters than she was with the Overseers - the Sisters were a secretive sect. According to Corvo, they directed the actions of the Overseers from a distance, acting through their male counterparts and appearing in public only rarely. She could only recall a handful of occasions when Corvo had met with the High Oracle; the woman, her face hidden by a smooth bronze mask with only slits for eyeholes, had always put Jessamine on edge.

“We assume she’s still alive,” Daud said, but he was frowning too. “The Overseers don’t usually execute their own once they’ve made it through the Trials of Aptitude; I don’t see why it would be any different for the Oracles.”

“Unless they saw what she’d done in the Void.” Curnow sounded pained at the thought; Jessamine wondered how he knew this Oracular Sister.

 _Corvo told me they don’t actually see into the Void. They study the patterns of history and make predictions based on their shared knowledge,_ Jessamine wrote.

“Are you sure?” Curnow looked painfully hopeful now.

 _Corvo told me ,_ Jessamine underlined the first three words for emphasis. Beneath that, she added, _As far as he knew, it was true._

“So as long as she keeps her mouth shut, her Sisters won’t find out anything they shouldn’t.”

“Admiral!” Stilton scolded, looking meaningfully at Jessamine.

Daud winced. “I didn’t mean—”

Jessamine smiled grimly. _I doubt Guerra will order this Sister’s tongue cut out._

“I don’t imagine she cares about what goes on with the Order, so long as they don’t oppose her despotic rule,” Daud muttered, but subsided as Stilton continued to glare disapprovingly at him.

“At any rate,” Curnow said, his tone coloured with faint exasperation, “I believe Callista will have valuable information for us. Perhaps not Lady Emilia’s location, but a place to start from. We’ll need to dismantle the Lady Regent’s support base if we want any hope of putting Lady Emilia on the throne, including this unknown Oracular Sister.”

Jessamine nodded. That made sense. Besides, Guerra and Emilia had never gotten along, and Jessamine couldn’t imagine the former Spymaster looking after Emilia while trying to rule. It was more likely that she’d hidden Emilia away somewhere, to be watched over by someone she trusted. If Jessamine tracked down enough of them and made them talk, one of Guerra’s supporters would cough up her daughter’s location eventually.

“I know you’re more used to protecting, but— If we cannot find some other way to remove Guerra’s supporters, murder may be our only option.” Stilton didn’t sound happy about the prospect.

Jessamine considered it, and found that she had no such qualms. She wanted to put a blade through everyone that had helped Guerra orchestrate Corvo’s death, the same way the assassin had done to Corvo—

“I think Jess will do just fine,” Daud said, an undertone of amusement threaded into his gruff voice. When she glanced at him, she saw the same anger she could feel burning in the pit of her stomach reflected in his eyes.

Jessamine didn’t bother to grace that with a reply; there was no need. She moved on to the next issue instead: _When do I leave_?

“Leave?” Stilton echoed. He sounded scandalized. “You’re in no condition—”

“Tomorrow at the earliest,” Daud cut in firmly, ignoring Stilton’s spluttering. He met her gaze squarely, unfazed by her glare.

“I have to agree with Mister Stilton,” Curnow said. “You just escaped from prison, Jess.”

 _Callista has already been imprisoned for days,_ Jessamine countered.

“We can discuss this tomorrow,” Daud said sharply. “It’s been a long day for everyone, but for you especially, Jess. You should rest up and we can figure out where to go from there.”

Jessamine considered arguing, but the three men all seemed in agreement that she was in no shape to do anything today and - privately - she agreed with them. She didn’t know if she would even be able to move tomorrow when she woke up— but she would have to.

“I’ll show you to your room, Jess,” Stilton said, rising. She did the same, nodding in acknowledgment when Curnow and Daud bade her farewell. She could hear them start to argue before the door had fully closed, Curnow’s voice cutting off but the low rasp of Daud’s still faintly audible if not coherent through the door.

A slender, mustachioed man was lurking in the hallway when they emerged from the dining room. He straightened up from where he was slouched against the wall when he saw them, an intent look in his eyes.

“Ah, Jess, this is Kirin—”

“Kirin Jindosh, natural philosopher.” Jindosh held out his hand for her to shake. There was some kind of pale covering over part of his hand, spanning his thumb and first finger.

She shook his hand, pleasantly surprised when he didn’t try to crush her with his grip. She usually enjoyed it when people tried that trick on her; the look on their faces when she returned the gesture, usually more strongly, was always something to savour. But it was nice not to have to play that game now, especially since she was in no condition to retaliate at the moment.

“I’ll be supplying you with gear and weapons,” Jindosh said, quickly dropping her hand. “I also have connections with the black market, so if you find anything useful on your travels, bring it to me and we can arrange a trade.”

Jessamine nodded.

Jindosh cocked his head, his gaze assessing.

“It’s been a long day, Kirin,” Stilton began, sounding slightly uncomfortable.

“Are you mute?” Jindosh asked bluntly, ignoring the other man.

Jessamine raised an eyebrow. He’d figured it out faster than Daud.

“I would have heard if you were mute. Everyone already talks of your foreign blood, a speech deficiency would only be more fodder for gossip—”

“ _Kirin_ ,” Stilton hissed.

“—so the Lady Regent must have had the torturer take your tongue while you were in Sofocaverno,” Jindosh concluded triumphantly. The little smirk that went along with that declaration was disgustingly cocky. So Jindosh was another natural philosopher with an inflated sense of self-worth and supreme (but not necessarily unfounded) confidence in his own intelligence.

“That’s enough for today, I think,” Stilton said into the slightly awkward silence. “You can show Jess everything you’ve prepared for her once she’s rested.”

“Mm, yes. I’ll have to add paper and some kind of writing utensil to her supplies,” Jindosh mused. “I suppose I could look into making a prosthetic tongue but—” he raised his hand, wiggling the fingers - prosthetic, she now realized, and real - in demonstration, “—it will probably be a good deal more difficult than replacing a couple of digits.”

Jessamine shrugged. She didn’t think such a thing would be possible, but Sokolov and his associates came up with new innovations routinely; it seemed like anything was possible, sometimes. If only they could create a cure for the rat plague already.

“I suppose there are worst things to lose than a tongue,” Jindosh said stiffly. “If you’re not interested, I’ll focus my energies on discovering a cure for this bloody plague.”

Jessamine blinked, then realized that Jindosh was miffed by her disinterest. She bit back the impulse to snort inelegantly; that reaction probably wouldn’t be appreciated either. It wasn’t as if she’d needed to speak often in her capacity as Royal Protector. But she supposed someone like Jindosh would have found the loss of his speech intolerable.

“I think that would be best, Kirin,” Stilton said, placating. “Perhaps once Lady Emilia has been found and restored to the throne, and a cure is found, you could turn your attentions to a prosthetic for Jess.”

“Perhaps. Well, I won’t keep you. You certainly look like you could use the rest, Jess,” Jindosh said, stepping aside to allow them passage down the hall.

Jessamine bared her teeth at him in a semblance of a smile. She couldn’t tell yet if Jindosh’s aggravating behaviour was out of genuine malice or the combination of social ineptitude and general disinterest in common decency that most natural philosophers seemed to possess to some degree.

“Thank you, Kirin.” Stilton sounded strained, and ushered her past him quickly.

One of the numerous guest rooms in Stilton’s manor had been set aside for her, the last door at the end of the hall on the second floor. Stilton handed her the key to her room, wished her a pleasant sleep and left her at the door, heading back towards the main area of the house.

Jessamine turned the key over in her hand, then opened the door. She locked it behind herself immediately. Six months ago, she wouldn’t have thought making the conscious choice to lock herself into a room would have made such a difference, but much of the tension that had knotted up her muscles eased as she took in her room.

The room was furnished modestly, though the most pressing concern was the bed. Jessamine wanted nothing more than to fall onto it and sleep for as long as her nightmares would let her. It wasn’t as lavish as the one in her quarters back in the palace - though Guerra had probably gotten rid of her belongings by now - but it looked more than comfortable. She would have taken a bed of straw by this point; anything remotely soft beat the slab of stone that had served as her bed for six months. A covered tray waited on the nightstand beside the bed; remembering that Jaime had promised her broth, her stomach cramped viciously all over again.

Jessamine breathed through the pain, and headed into the small water closet attached to the room. She unwrapped her hands carefully, dropping the soiled bandages to the floor. She washed them thoroughly in the sink, ignoring the sting as she worked the remaining grit out of her cuts and scrapes. There wasn’t a bathtub, though now that she was within reach of a bed she didn’t have the patience for a bath, but she wiped the worst of the sweat and blood off the rest of her body, leaving her clothes with the bandages on the floor.

A cursory investigation of the dresser revealed a pale nightgown. It wasn’t her first choice, but Jessamine pulled it over her head and staggered over to the bed. The bowl of broth was still warm, and Jessamine sipped at it slowly as she sat up in the bed. It was even more comfortable than she could have imagined; a few tears did escape as she sat there, trying not to overwhelm her fragile stomach with too much too quickly.

When the bowl was empty - she’d put the rim to her mouth and tipped it up to be sure she’d gotten every last drop - she set it aside and curled up under the blankets. Everything still _hurt_ , but— less. Things didn’t look quite so bleak. She might die tomorrow, but it wouldn’t be at the blade of Guerra’s chosen executioner; Emilia was still missing, and Corvo was still dead, but Jessamine could do something about that now. She would find Emilia, and avenge Corvo.

Or she would die trying.


	3. innominate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **innominate**  
>  _adjective_  
>  1\. having no name; nameless; anonymous.

Jessamine awoke in a place that was both familiar and not. Familiar in that she recognized this particular shade of blue, impossible to recreate in the waking world though she had seen several artists try, and the fact that she found herself standing on the balcony beyond Corvo’s office in the palace; unfamiliar in that she felt— present, and lucid, in the Void in a way that she never had before.

According to certain fringes of academia, the Void was a place - a plane of existence, a shared delusion or something else entirely, none of the natural philosophers could seem to agree - that most people visited at least once in their lives. Of those, the only consensus that could be reached about the Void was that it was an endless blue expanse, largely empty, populated sparsely with seemingly random objects.

Jessamine had dreamed of the Void twice before, though she could remember nothing concrete of her time there beyond a feeling of insignificance. She didn’t feel insignificant now.

She felt furious.

Corvo’s corpse lay before her, his blood impossibly red against the marble. His chest was still, his eyes closed. Jessamine didn’t have to see the anguish and fear in his warm eyes as his last breath rattled in his lungs; this wasn’t another of her nightmares. Their— _her_ surroundings indicated as much, even beyond the fact that Corvo was dead, not dying.

The balcony floated in the Void, as if it had been torn off the exterior of the palace and left to drift in this forgotten place. Perhaps Guerra had torn it out; the marble had been sent by the Duke of Gristol along with Jessamine and the other Royal Protector candidates as tribute to Serkonos, and Guerra had never hidden her scorn for foreign things— human or otherwise.

A piece of folded paper lay on the floor beyond Corvo’s lax fingers.

Jessamine was across the balcony, skirting carefully around Corvo’s still form, and bending to pick it up before she quite made the conscious decision to do so.

_YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM YOU CANNOT SAVE HIM_

She tore her eyes away from the repeating accusation, her anger growing because the words were _true_. But the note was spared from being crumpled by the sight of stark black lines marking the back of her left hand. It was a distinctive sigil, one that she’d seen carved into whale bone and other materials; the mark of—

“Hello, Jessamine.”

She flinched, looking up sharply. A young man floated before her, the soles of his boots dangling several inches above the balcony’s railing. His eyes, entirely black and impossible to read, seemed to bore into her, but she met his gaze without flinching.

“What a sad hand fate has dealt you,” the Outsider said, his smooth tone belying the seemingly sympathetic words.

Jessamine opened her mouth to respond to that insincere platitude, but found she couldn’t move; it was just as well, considering her lack of tongue.

The corners of the Outsider’s mouth turned up in the faintest impression of a smirk, as if he could read her thoughts, but he continued without otherwise acknowledging her, “Your family torn apart, Emperor and lover murdered, daughter stolen away— and what will you do to get young Emilia back, I wonder? So many paths stretch out before your feet, all leading to her, but where does it end?”

Jessamine glared at him. She would restore Emilia to the throne; there were no alternatives. If Jessamine died, Emilia would either be Guerra’s pawn for most if not all of her life, or something altogether worse— outcomes that were entirely unacceptable. Jessamine would succeed.

“The days to come won’t be easy, but you’re no stranger to hardship.” The knowing look in the Outsider’s eyes set Jessamine on edge, but she refused to look away. “You spent six months in Sofocaverno, and the two months before that, begging for aid that none of the other Isles would provide were no picnic either; to say nothing of your childhood days on the streets of Dunwall. But Guerra is clever, and her allies aren’t fools either— for the most part. You’ll need an edge if you want to defeat them,” the Outsider said. He gestured at her left hand, still raised before her. “And so, I gift you my mark. Use its powers to find me.”

He disappeared into a bloom of darkness. When the last of the unnatural shadows faded, they revealed that the railing of the balcony had peeled away beneath where the Outsider had been hovering. Beyond the new opening, a series of flat, floating stones formed a makeshift staircase further into the Void.

Jessamine looked down at her hand. The note was still clutched in her fingers. She refolded it carefully and tucked it into a pocket before starting down the steps.

* * *

Jessamine had believed that there was magic in the world - what else could explain the uncanny luck brought on by the carved-bone trinkets that washed up on the banks of the Wrenhaven? - but in a distant way. The Overseers had always seemed overzealous in their persecution of so-called heretics, mainly the downtrodden who clung to any chance at improving their lot in life. Magic could bend natural laws, but there was a rational explanation for it, and it was governed by a set of rules that had yet to be divined— the natural philosophers simply hadn’t uncovered everything about it yet.

Even the prophecies of the Oracular Sisters weren’t visions in the Void, as so many people believed (Jessamine included, until Corvo had told her otherwise), but rather predictions based on an extensive knowledge of history and the patterns it tended to make. Jessamine appreciated the mundane explanation for the Oracles’ apparent foresight, some part of her glad that the Sisters didn’t need to draw on the Void but had gained their insight through study. It also lent further support to her beliefs regarding magic.

The appearance of the assassins had thrown everything she thought she knew into chaos. Their abilities hadn’t been enhanced by a collection of cobbled charms, nor could they be explained by any theories or natural laws posited by the natural philosophers; _magic_ was the only explanation, on a scale that Jessamine couldn’t have imagined.

And now, Jessamine had that same power - or something very similar to it - at her own disposal.

The mark on her hand burned as she moved from one floating island to the next, crossing the space between them in the blink of an eye, with little more than a thought. The Void - or at least the part of it that she was currently exploring - was surprisingly cluttered. Debris trailed away from the main islands, too small to support her weight; further away, drainage pipes spilled water upwards. A dinghy rolled slowly, capsizing and resurfacing in water that didn’t exist, near a buoy that hung motionless.

Distantly, she heard the mournful lowing of a whale; one of the leviathans, so far out that she could just recognize its shape, swam slowly through the air.

Jessamine froze when she reached the first larger island. The ones between had lacked any defining features, but this one - like the balcony with Corvo’s corpse - was clearly a recreation of a place that existed in the waking world. It was the room that led to the balcony, Corvo’s office. The rendition was incomplete, with only a single, partial wall - the one with Corvo’s collection of books. He had an entire library at his disposal, but insisted upon keeping copies of the legal code and other official publications in his office. His quarters in the Palace had an even larger and more eclectic selection of books, ranging from fiction to history to any other number of topics between, anything that caught his eye.

The thought of Guerra laying so much as a finger on Corvo’s private library was too much. Jessamine bit down on the inside of her cheek and forced herself to examine the rest of the incomplete room. She was standing behind Corvo’s desk, just inside where the glass doors leading to the balcony would have been had this been the real Palace. The last time she’d been here was the day of Corvo’s murder.

The office was empty, aside from a single static figure: Guerra, wearing a triumphant sneer, arm outstretched towards the hall; frozen in the act of ordering the Grand Guard to take Jessamine to Sofocaverno. That sneer was what had convinced Jessamine that Guerra was involved in Corvo’s death; she’d ignored Jessamine’s pleas to track down the assassins, loudly proclaiming that the Royal Protector had murdered the Emperor and kidnapped his daughter. Guerra’s ruthless interrogation and torture over the course of the last six months had only cemented Jessamine’s suspicions.

She took a slow breath, reining in her anger with some success. There was no point in lashing out at some construct of the Void; considering the Outsider’s presence earlier, the creature was probably watching her and gauging her reactions at that very moment. Jessamine resolved not to rise to the bait and continued forward, but the very next scene drew her up short again.

The surroundings were unfamiliar, a row of dingy cots along the only wall suggesting a dormitory of some sort. At the foot of one of the beds, in the centre of the room, a man of aristocratic bearing and garb loomed over Emilia, his hand clenched tightly around her wrist as she tried to pull away. His face was set in an angry snarl, but Emilia was glaring right back at him, seemingly unafraid.

Jessamine stared at her daughter’s face, cataloguing her familiar features, even if they were set into an unfamiliar expression. She reached out to touch Emilia’s cheek, but her skin was cold and unyielding beneath her fingers; as if carved from stone, but decorated in Emilia’s exact likeness by an artist whose talents surpassed even Sokolov’s. Jessamine jerked her hand back as if burned, looking away from the statue.

Her eye caught on the doll lying forgotten on the floor at the head of the bed. Mrs. Pilsen. On closer inspection, there were a number of papers tucked under the bed frame, most of them covered in Emilia’s signature drawings.

Was this where Emilia was being held?

Jessamine looked it over again, but there was nothing remarkable about the space, nothing that could tell her where the dormitory was. The noble looked familiar, but Jessamine had met nearly all of Karnaca’s high society by now so that wasn’t surprising. It was - had been, she corrected with a pang - Corvo’s responsibility to keep track of all their names and families and connections; all Jessamine had had to do was follow at his side and glare when one of them stepped out of line.

Corvo would have known this noble’s identity, and the names of his parents, and probably an improbable number of quaint facts about the man’s life as well. The best Jessamine could do was stare at his vaguely familiar face; she couldn’t even begin to guess at his name, much less anything else about him.

Jessamine cast a final look at Emilia, tamping down on the impulse to reach out again, and moved on.

The next scene was of Curnow, Daud and Stilton. They were at a bar of some sort, sombre but hopeful expressions on their faces as they raised their glasses in a toast. Jessamine was familiar with the three men, but she wasn’t certain yet if she could trust them. Daud had been part of Corvo’s circle of advisors before Jessamine became the Royal Protector, but so had Guerra; Curnow had always struck Jessamine as a genuine, reliable Captain of the Grand Guard, but plenty of guards she would have considered trustworthy in the past had tormented her in Sofocaverno; and Stilton was forthright and open in his dealings with everyone, but he could be easily led.

But they had liberated her from Sofocaverno, and seemed sincere in their desire to unseat Guerra and put Emilia on the throne; they were the only allies Jessamine had at the moment, so she would cooperate with them for now.

The final scene was crowded but took place on an outcropping of rock, no defining features to the surroundings; as if all the detail had been focused on the figures frozen before her. A trio of weepers, still lucid enough to know to flinch back from the guards mounted on improbably tall metal stilts, and the incendiary bolts they were shooting at them.

More of Guerra’s “bold measures”, perhaps.

Jessamine moved on, arriving at another island of blank rock. There was no obvious way forward, but as soon as she realized that fact the Outsider appeared before her again.

“The paths before you will be arduous, but the powers I have granted you will make some trials easier,” the Outsider said, as if they’d been speaking the entire time. Not that Jessamine could speak, or write down her questions - the Outsider hadn’t seen fit to provide her with anything - but surely he could read her thoughts to some extent?

If he could, the Outsider didn’t acknowledge it; no matter how she concentrated on the assassins, the Outsider made no mention of them, instead droning on about his gift and Jessamine’s choices.

“Should you choose to use my gift, there are certain artifacts that will augment your powers. You’ve seen them before: ancient runes, carved with my mark. To help you find these artifacts, I offer you another gift.” He flourished a hand before him; a heart appeared a few inches above his open palm. “The Heart of a living thing, moulded by my hands.”

Jessamine studied the Heart floating in the air before her. She recognized the organ from the books of anatomy that Corvo had kept, though it had obviously been modified. A circular pane of glass was set in the muscle, revealing the clockwork gears that made the thing beat slowly as she stared. Metal wire stitched the flesh closed. It reminded her, vaguely, of the bone charms she’d seen in the past.

“Will you not take it?” The Outsider’s drawl was mocking, but Jessamine ignored it. “Hold it close, and it will whisper secrets many would prefer forgotten.” When she still made no move to take the thing, he added, “I assure you, this is not some random heart picked out from the gutter, though I could arrange for such a thing if you’d prefer.”

Jessamine’s breath caught, her eyes darting up to meet the Outsider’s dark, amused gaze. Surely he couldn’t mean—

“When you are near,” a voice whispered, so familiar that she would have sworn she imagined it if not for the fact that she was standing in the Void, before the Outsider himself, “my heart is at peace.”

Jessamine snatched the Heart away, cradling it protectively against her chest. Her own heart was beating impossibly fast; the Heart beat slowly, a steady pulse that seemed to resonate through her entire body.

The Outsider smiled, so jarringly false that it set Jessamine’s teeth on edge. “An interesting choice, Jessamine,” he said, obviously delighted. “Use the Heart now to find one of the shrines raised in my name and with it, a rune.” With those last words to her, he disappeared. When the shadows faded, she saw a path extending forward before her.

She squeezed the Heart, fighting back grief and anger.

“This place is the end of all things, and the beginning,” the Heart whispered. He— it— sounded so tired. Jessamine’s heart ached in sympathy.

She started down the path, half an eye on her surroundings but most of her attention taken by the Outsider’s “gift”. The glass lit up from within, though there was no obvious source of illumination, and it started to beat faster in her hand. She jerked in surprise, and the Heart’s beating slowed as the glass went dark once more. She moved it cautiously before her; the light returned and pulsing picked up when she aimed it in a certain direction. The rune mentioned by the Outsider must be in that direction.

The Outsider hadn’t set any further scenes to raise her blood pressure - the Heart’s existence and murmured secrets were more than enough to do that now - so Jessamine moved through the crumbling buildings and rocks quickly and with relative ease. A strange shrine, decorated with swoops of violet cloth, awaited her.

The Heart pulsed wildly in her grip as she stood before the crude wooden altar, as if it sought to escape her grasp. Jessamine stared down at it. How much of Corvo’s spirit was trapped in the thing? How aware was he of what had become of him? Did he truly want to be free—?

Jessamine wasn’t certain that she wanted to know the answers to those questions.

As soon as she picked up the rune, the Outsider appeared before her once again. “Now that you know how to use my gifts, what you do with them is up to you. Will you carve your own mark into the world, or sneak through the dark places without being seen; perhaps you’ll seek a middle ground between the two? No matter what you decide, know that I will be watching with great interest.”

The Outsider whispered the last words, his voice echoing in Jessamine’s head as she jolted awake, sitting bolt upright.

“Oh!”

Jessamine stopped herself from driving her knife into the servant trembling at her bedside, barely. What drew her up short was the Heart, slowly beating in her left hand.

The young woman was looking with wide eyes at the knife in Jessamine’s right hand; if she noticed the Heart at all, she gave no sign of it.

Jessamine tucked both items under her pillow, leaving her left hand under it to hide the mark, and schooled her features into an inquiring expression.

“Um, pardon me,” the woman murmured, ducking into a clumsy curtsy. She was obviously unpracticed, and further hindered by the pair of sturdy trousers she was wearing.

Jessamine waved her free hand dismissively; despite the title that had come with her position as Royal Protector, she’d never stood on ceremony from servants. It was their noble masters ignoring her status that had come to grate on her.

“I’m Cecelia. I’m sorry for intruding, Lady Jess, but it’s been almost a day and a half and the trays of food and drink we’d been leaving out for you hadn’t been touched,” Cecelia explained, her gaze fixed on the floor. “Kirin had to pick the lock, but Jaime said that I should be the one to check on you.”

Jessamine glanced at the door, remembering that she had locked it after she’d entered. It was closed again, but she wondered if Jaime and Jindosh - or any of the three men obviously in charge of this conspiracy - were waiting for her to emerge beyond it.

“Is there anything I can get you?” Cecelia held out the pad of paper and pen that Jessamine had left on the nightstand. Jessamine took them, careful to keep the back of her left hand hidden.

 _Gloves,_ she wrote first.

Cecelia nodded, her capped head bobbing quickly. “Of course, Jaime mentioned you’d injured them climbing out— Um.” The young woman’s cheeks flushed and she ducked her head again. “Sorry, didn’t mean to bring that up. Do you need anything else? There should be suitable clothes in the wardrobe.”

 _Something to eat._ Jessamine hadn’t noticed it at first, preoccupied with everything else going on, but her stomach’s steady aching was a pressing concern now. Usually it was overshadowed by the pain from her various injuries, but her body was surprisingly pain-free. A side effect of receiving the Outsider’s mark?

“Of course. I’ll bring you some broth and water, and see about finding you a pair of gloves. Will that be all, Lady Jess?” At Jessamine’s nod, Cecelia ducked into a bow this time and let herself out of the room, shutting the door softly behind her.

As soon as her footsteps had faded, Jessamine blinked over to the door. It was as simple to draw on the mark as it had been in the Void, and after she’d locked the door again, Jessamine stood there studying the mark for several moments.

It was flush with her skin, more of a tattoo than anything that had been applied to her flesh. The skin didn’t feel any different when she ran her fingers over it, but when she clenched her hand into a fist, drawing on its power again, the black lines lit from within, shining teal and gold.

Too conspicuous; hopefully Cecelia would be able to find her a good pair of gloves. Jessamine let the power go, and walked back over to her bed. The Heart was still there, beating slowly. Its pace quickened as she picked it up; a rune must be nearby. She made a note to find it, but felt no inclination to move at the moment.

“So many dead,” the Heart whispered when she squeezed it. Its gears churned slowly, light flickering behind the pane of glass. “And more brought up from the city each day. Will Karnaca ever recover?”

It would, even if Jessamine had to rebuild Corvo’s city brick by brick. Jessamine cradled the Heart in her hands, determined to keep it safe as she’d failed to do six months earlier. She would work with these men and find Emilia and remove Guerra; there was no room for doubt.


	4. manumit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **manumit**  
>  _verb_  
>  1\. to release from slavery or servitude.

The sun had nearly finished its descent to the horizon as afternoon gave way to evening by the time Jessamine emerged from her room. The high walls surrounding Stilton’s manor cast the lawns in shadow when she glanced out the window, and the sky above - the parts of it that could be seen beyond the clouds - was a deep shade of blue.

Jessamine was to meet Curnow, Daud and Stilton in one of the sitting rooms, according to Cecelia. The young woman had found Jessamine a pair of dark leather gloves that fit surprisingly well; the mark was still visible when she used its power, but otherwise the garment hid the mark perfectly. It was the best Jessamine could ask for, and after checking that the Heart was secure in her pocket, she set out to meet the three men who had helped her escape Sofocaverno.

Stilton and Curnow were seated in a pair of armchairs beside the unlit fireplace, conversing softly. They quieted when Jessamine entered the room, though their expressions remained grave.

“Lady Jess,” Stilton said, making to rise; Curnow hastened to do the same.

Jessamine waved them down, striding over to sit on the couch adjacent to them.

It took her a moment to locate Daud, but movement near the window drew her eye; as she watched, he pinched his cigarette out between gloved fingers, tucking the remainder into his pocket. After closing the window, he came over to join them, leaning against the mantel of the fireplace.

Stilton cleared his throat. “You look better.” His expression froze for a moment, then he quickly added, “That is to say, you look well-rested. You—”

Daud snorted inelegantly, the derisive sound cutting off Stilton’s embarrassed sputtering.

Jessamine inclined her head to Stilton. She felt better than she had in recent memory. The scraped-raw skin on her hands had been healed completely when she awoke, and many of her other injuries looked months old rather than inflicted in the past week. Her hair was no longer the matted mess it had become in Sofocaverno, victim of Jessamine’s merciless brushing. The brush itself had looked rather worse for the wear once she was done; Corvo would have frowned over that, and the relentless way she’d gotten rid of the tangles. He’d always enjoyed brushing her hair—

This was no time to think about Corvo. Jessamine picked up her pad of paper and wrote, _When do I leave to rescue Callista?_

“Tonight, as soon you’re ready,” Daud answered swiftly.

“Admiral,” Stilton protested. “Lady Jess just escaped from six months of prison and torture. A good night’s rest isn’t enough time—”

Jessamine tuned out the rest of his speech, scribbling her argument in a messy scrawl beneath her first question. _You lost contact with Callista almost a week ago, that’s already too long._

Curnow was silent, observing Stilton and Daud’s argument with a worried expression on his face. He probably wanted Jessamine to go rescue his contact, but felt that Jessamine wasn’t ready for the mission. He noticed her first, and cleared his throat to draw the attention of the other two men.

“There,” Daud said triumphantly. “We can’t afford to waste any more time. It may already be too late as it is.”

“If that’s the case, then why would we risk losing Lady Jess as well,” Stilton argued, and they were off again.

Jessamine shared a commiserating look with Curnow, then scrawled another question for him. _Where is Jindosh? I can get my equipment from him._

Curnow cast another look at his fellow conspirators, then heaved a sigh and stood. “We’ll be back,” he said vaguely in the direction of Daud and Stilton, who didn’t seem to notice.

 _You three are an unlikely group,_ Jessamine awkwardly wrote as Curnow lead her through the halls.

“Sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn’t it? A dishonorably discharged Pandyssian Admiral, a disgraced Gristolian Guard Captain and a Morlish mine baron walk into a bar…”

Jessamine snorted, and they shared a brief smile. She’d always liked Curnow. She didn’t know if she could trust him now, but she would have trusted him before.

“It was Daud’s idea to form our little coalition,” Curnow explained as they passed through a door leading to the back of the manor. “Stilton calls us the Loyalists. Daud thinks the name is pretentious. I think that about sums it up.”

Jessamine snorted again, shaking her head. As they waited for the elevator to reach their floor, she quickly wrote her reply. _How did the three of you meet?_

“Well, Daud and I already knew each other. The Lady Regent—” Curnow’s mouth twisted into something sour, “—had me and the other guards who weren’t pure Serkonan out from the Grand Guard within the week. Stilton hired me for private security. And then, after Daud, ah.” He stopped, obviously trying to discern how to phrase what had led to Daud’s dishonorable discharge. He might have been half-Pandyssian, but he was popular with the navy men. “After Daud’s failed revolt, he came to me. He knew I felt the same about what was happening, and I knew Stilton did too, and here we are.”

The elevator arrived, heralded by a ringing chime and the metal grates sliding apart noisily. Curnow waved for her to go first, wincing at the look she sent him, then followed her inside. He pressed the button for the lowest level, and the elevator shuddered into motion again.

Jessamine had never been to Stilton’s basement on past visits, but she doubted it had looked like this before. Most of the space had been converted into a large workshop. An industrial drill press was set up near the centre of the main area, with a whale tank dispensing station bolted to the nearest wall. Jindosh was at the counter next to it, peering at something through a magnifying glass and muttering to himself.

“Ah, Lady Jess, Captain,” Jindosh greeted them distractedly, sparing them little more than a glance before returning to his work. “The red-haired one said you were up and about, I was wondering when you’d appear.”

“She has a name.” There was a tight note to Curnow’s voice that hadn’t been there before.

“Most people do, Captain.” If Jindosh noticed Curnow’s tension, he gave no indication of it.

“Does he even know _my_ name?” Curnow muttered, glancing upward as if begging for patience. More loudly, he added, “Lady Jess will probably be leaving soon and she wanted to see about her gear.”

“Ah, yes. I’m just making some last minute adjustments. Come here, Lady Jess.” Jindosh straightened, holding up what he’d been working on— a mask, though he had its front facing away from her.

While the imperious tone set her hackles up slightly, Jessamine had faced far worse at Corvo’s side; Jindosh, at least, was trying to help her. Jessamine bit back her annoyance and walked over to him, allowing him to fit the mask over her face. The inside was lined with a soft cloth, protecting her face from the hard metal. The eyeholes restricted her field of vision slightly, but it wasn’t too noticeable.

“Does it fit comfortably?”

Jessamine nodded, though it was difficult to focus on Jindosh’s face.

“I’ll adjust the magnification now.” Jindosh raised a screwdriver, the fingertips of his empty hand pressing against the edge of the mask to hold her head still.

She made a conscious effort not to flinch. By the Void, it was a _screwdriver_. It could be used as a weapon - most things could, in a pinch - but it wasn’t one of the tools the torturer had turned on her. There was no reason for the pit of her stomach to be dropping in fearful anticipation, but that didn’t change the fact that it was.

Jindosh worked at the mask for a few moments, oblivious to her discomfort. At length, his face in proper focus, he stepped back. “There. How’s that?”

Jessamine nodded again, reaching up to slip the mask off. When she turned it over, a stylized but recognizable rendition of a skull leered up at her. It was all sharp angles, the two halves held together by deceptively delicate gold wire and thicker bands of copper.

“No discomfort?” When Jessamine shook her head, he continued, “If you notice anything tonight, be certain to inform me so I can make the necessary modifications.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned away and hurried over to another counter, beckoning for her to follow.

Curnow was still standing by the elevator, watching the scene with an expression that had faded from anger to exasperation. He rolled his eyes when he caught her gaze, smiling ruefully.

Jessamine could understand the sentiment. She followed Jindosh to the counter along the back wall, where a variety of weapons and ammunition were laid out in orderly rows; her gear, presumably.

Jindosh listed off each item - a pistol loaded with standard bullets, a small crossbow that could shoot wooden bolts or glass darts loaded with sleep toxin, and a strange folding blade.

Jessamine picked it up, her grip tightening around the engaging mechanism; the blade slid out smoothly. Even at a glance, it was vastly superior to the old knife she was still carrying around. Its edge was honed to lethal sharpness, the length of its blade slightly shorter than a standard sword. She moved through a few experimental forms, gauging its weight and her own fitness.

Her reflexes felt slower than they had six months ago, but she still felt miles better than she had crawling out of a pit with Jaime’s help.

The crossbow hooked onto the sturdy belt Jindosh provided, the pistol into the holster on her bandolier. The belt also had numerous pouches to store her ammunition and a pad of paper.

“As I mentioned yesterday, if you find anything useful, bring it to me and I’ll provide compensation. There are a number of upgrades for your gear that I have in mind, but, alas, lack the resources to implement at this time.”

Jessamine nodded again. It felt like all she’d done since they reached Jindosh’s workshop.

“Any other questions?”

Jessamine pulled out her pad of paper. _No. Thank you, Dr. Jindosh._

Jindosh’s mouth twisted into a bitter grimace. “Just Kirin will do. I was kicked out of the Academy of Natural Philosophy, and my degrees were revoked.”

She crossed out his last name and former title, and wrote his first instead.

“You’re welcome, Lady Jess,” Kirin muttered. “If that’s all, I’ll return to my work.”

“Yes, thank you again, Kirin,” Curnow said. “I suppose we should go find Stilton and Daud, they might be wondering where we’ve gotten to.”

Jessamine raised an eyebrow as they boarded the elevator once more.

“Assuming they stopped arguing long enough to notice our absence,” Curnow added drily.

* * *

It transpired that they had noticed. The pair of men were waiting for them in the front foyer, Daud leaning against one wall and smoking again while Stilton paced erratically across the floor.

“There you are!” Stilton sagged in relief when he saw them.

“I told you she hadn’t left yet,” Daud muttered.

“I truly don’t think you should go at all, Lady Jess,” Stilton said earnestly.

Jessamine shook her head. When Stilton still looked skeptical, she quickly wrote, _I’m going._

“Jess knows her limits,” Daud added.

Stilton frowned. “I can see neither of you will be swayed,” he said, glancing between Jessamine and Daud, “and I suppose your concern for your niece is most pressing.” This he addressed to Curnow, who had the grace to look chagrined. That explained his eagerness for Callista’s rescue, at any rate. Stilton sighed heavily. “I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but: please be careful, Lady Jess. You are as important to this undertaking as Lady Emilia herself.”

Jessamine could only blink at him, astonished. After a moment, she inclined her head.

“All right, that’s enough of that,” Daud cut in, but it seemed as if his impatience was more for form’s sake than anything else. “The trip to Cyria Gardens takes at least an hour; we’re wasting the night.”

* * *

A man a few years younger than Jessamine took her to the edge of Cyria Gardens, piloting the skiff through back ways and underground canals with an ease that surprised her.

Unlike Dunwall, the city where she’d grown up, Karnaca sprawled along the coast rather than following a body of water inland - largely due to the fact that the Grand Serkonan Canal had only been constructed in the last generation. As a result, she’d become more accustomed to traveling by horse-drawn carriage or the rail lines that were slowly connecting Karnaca’s various districts; she’d never given much thought to using the waterways of the capital as a means of getting quickly from one district to another.

“Grew up on these streets,” the man - who’d introduced himself as Thomas - explained as they passed under the streets again. “My parents were smugglers; I was pressed into the navy after they got caught. That’s where Daud picked me up.”

Thomas kept up a steady stream of chatter, seemingly content to keep the conversation going without her input. When he did happen to ask her a question, he waited patiently for her to write out her reply without chattering onward. He filled her in on what had happened in the city during her imprisonment, though there was no mention of the “revolt” that Curnow had referred to. Perhaps she would interrogate the Admiral about it when she came back.

“And we’re here,” Thomas said, slowing the skiff to a halt at the foot of a short flight of stairs. “Cyria Gardens. There’s a footpath leading up to Somonos Outlook, but taking that is more like a religious pilgrimage than a quick walk. I’d recommend the rail line; only the upper classes can afford to buy a ticket these days, but sneaking on shouldn’t be too difficult for someone of your calibre, Lady Jess.”

Jessamine raised an eyebrow, then, upon realizing that he couldn’t see her expression behind the mask, cocked her head inquiringly.

“Ah—” Thomas ducked his head, though not swiftly enough to hide his caught-out expression. “Admiral Daud talked about you sometimes. He has a high opinion of your skills.”

That was news to Jessamine. While Daud had never disparaged her worthiness to the title of Royal Protector as some members of Corvo’s court had, he’d never gone out of his way to acknowledge her either. The lack of distrust and contempt from the Admiral had been more than enough for her.

A mystery to dwell on another time; while Thomas’ gaze was elsewhere, Jessamine pulled out the Heart and pointed it at him.

“Thomas. Lieutenant. Loyal to Daud above all else,” the Heart whispered.

Thomas glanced up again, before she could tuck the Heart away, but his gaze passed right over it. “Anyway, I think there’s a black market shop operating on the edge of the district, if you need to resupply. I’d avoid the Academy of Natural Philosophy if you can, though. There’s a lot of security there; Sokolov’s devices and Grand Guard squads.”

Jessamine nodded, disembarking from the skiff.

“Good luck! Not that I think you’ll need it!” Thomas called softly after her. She raised a hand in acknowledgment, and headed for the street.

* * *

_[art](http://marvellousfacebear.tumblr.com/post/163608346604/he-threw-her-out-on-the-street-when-her-skin-grew)by [marvellousfacebear](marvellousfacebear.tumblr.com)_

The Academy of Natural Philosophy was cordoned off from the rest of the district by a Grand Guard checkpoint and one of Sokolov’s Walls of Light. Jessamine gave the well-lit street a cursory glance as she moved past, but the number of guards and the lack of decent hiding places deterred her from traveling down it; her destination was further east, in any case.

Even with a few detours to investigate nearby bone artifacts that the Heart alerted her to, she made good time to the rail station. It helped that the streets were deserted apart from patrolling guardsmen, but the absence of regular citizens - and the abundance of abandoned, quarantined buildings - only served to revive Jessamine’s anger from the day before and stoke it to new heights. As she crept around the edges of the district, collecting runes and bone charms with the aid of the Heart, she came across far too many piles of shrouded bodies in dark corners and down alleys, either waiting for transportation to Clemente Landing or left to rot.

She’d seen that parts of the city were dark on her way to Cyria Gardens, and the state of Batista had made the situation more obvious, but seeing the ruin up close in a still-inhabited district only drove the message home.

Two guards were piling bodies into an open dumpster near the entrance of the rail station. A third stood nearby, writing on a clipboard. All three were wearing masks over the lower portion of their faces, presumably to prevent contracting the plague.

“Can’t we just throw ‘em in the sewer?” one of the guards moving the corpses complained. His partner shot him an annoyed look as the officer counting the dead looked up from his clipboard.

“No. You want the plague to spread even more, you idiot? If I catch either of you tossing these bodies anywhere but into a container or the plague wagon, you’ll be out on the streets faster than you can blink.”

“I wouldn’t, sir,” the second guard said, glaring daggers at her partner.

The officer made a disinterested sound and turned back to his tallying. “Get back to work! The sooner you finish, the sooner we can leave this shithole.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jessamine remained crouched on the balcony of an abandoned tenement block, watching them work. The trio was more interested in finishing their job than keeping watch; she could probably take out the officer before the other two noticed, and with the powers granted to her by the mark, she’d have no trouble finishing the pair off after. Or she could just pick them off from here with her crossbow.

It was tempting. Jessamine had had no compunctions about killing the guards on her way out of Sofocaverno, but none of the guards she’d passed on her way through the Gardens had been her tormentors in prison. They were just doing their jobs, trying to stay afloat in a city that was on the verge of drowning.

Corvo wouldn’t condone needless killing.

The Heart pulsed languidly in her hand when she pulled it out of her pocket. She aimed it at the male guard moving the bodies.

“He threw her out on the street when her skin grew pale and the cough wracked her body. They were to be wed,” the Heart whispered.

So she’d kill him. Jessamine moved on to his partner.

“Her brother grows weaker every day, even with the elixir rations she shares with him. He’ll be dead before the month is out, and she will soon follow.”

Jessamine frowned but decided that the woman would live— for now, anyway. The Outsider had said the Heart whispered secrets, but could she trust its words? They had the eerie note of prophecy, but surely nothing was set in stone.

“He sent the children to Cullero on the last boat before the blockade came down. He thinks about them every day,” the Heart murmured when she pointed it at the officer.

The officer was the first to fall, gasping and clawing at the arm she had around his neck; she dropped him and shot the woman with a sleep dart, then closed the distance between herself and the remaining guard with a single blink. He gasped, a shout dying in his throat as she ran him through with her folding blade. She shoved his body into the dumpster with the rest of the corpses, then quickly stashed the other two guards in the guard post.

The station was empty at this time of night, but she could see a carriage sitting unattended on the raised rails above her. The stairs leading to the basement were crudely barricaded - forgotten luggage and waiting benches pressed up against a haphazard barrier of boards nailed over the opening. As she made for the next floor, the Heart started beating harder against her chest; when she pulled it out, it pointed to a rune or bone charm below her.

Gazing through the floor with her newly-acquired power - dark vision - revealed several people. But as she stared, she realized they were lying down - and unnaturally still. Dead, then.

Jessamine clambered up the barricade and kicked in some of the boards. She waited for several seconds as the echoes of the broken pieces of the wood falling down the steps faded, and when no other sounds greeted her, slipped down into the stairwell.

A faded smear of whale oil lit the floor at the foot of the stairs, though it provided little in the way of practical illumination; all it did was cast shadows and ruin her ability to see in the darkness. But it ceased to be a problem when she rounded the corner.

Eerie purple light shone from a number of whale oil lamps scattered around a crude wooden altar set up in the far corner. Blue and violet fabric was pinned above the construction, threaded golden patterns glittering in the light. A few inches above the altar’s surface, a single rune floated, hissing softly.

Jessamine crossed the room, stepping carefully over the bodies. Plague victims, judging by the dried tracks of blood leaking from blank, clouded eyes. She picked up the rune, intending to add it to the growing collection tucked into various pockets, but the Outsider appeared as soon as she touched the rune.

“Hello again, Jessamine. How does it feel to be free once more? Walking the streets that you’ve called your home for the past fifteen years must be a relief— but this is not the Karnaca you remember, is it?

“Those bearing my mark often come in conflict with the Abbey of the Everyman and the Oracular Order at some point or another, but they don’t usually seek it out the day after I first grant them the mark.” The Outsider’s mouth curled into that faint smirk she was already coming to resent. “You seem bent on surpassing all the others who have caught my eye before— assuming you live out the night.”

Encouraging. Jessamine glared up at him. The only other person that the Outsider had marked that Jessamine wanted to hear about was the assassin who had murdered Corvo.

“Will you leave the halls of that old fortress running with blood, or use a lighter hand? The Oracle helping Guerra has predicted that you will come for them, but that outcome should be obvious to anyone possessing even passing familiarity with you, no visions found in the Void required. Even I can’t see how tonight will unfold, but I find myself looking forward to it.”

Jessamine scowled when her awareness of the stale basement returned and tucked the rune away. Was that supposed to be some kind of pep talk? If anything, it had only raised her ire even more. She wanted to prove the Outsider wrong, but his proclamations had been so open-ended that no matter how she resolved this mission, some part of his predictions would come true.

The station was still deserted when she emerged from the basement. She settled into the rail carriage, kicking the lever to start it moving up the track with more force than necessary.

“There is such anger in you now,” the Heart whispered unprompted as the carriage took her up the mountain.

Jessamine gritted her teeth, turning to look out over the city. Swathes of it were dark because of Guerra. Corvo was dead because of Guerra. And Guerra was safely ensconced in the palace, usurping Corvo’s authority and hiding Emilia and running Corvo’s city into the ground. Was she supposed to be happy about any of those facts?

She hadn’t won the annual Blade Rondo and caught the eye of the Duke of Gristol by chance. She’d been driven and dedicated, and a large part of that drive was her anger. Anger at the injustice in the world, anger that so many could have so little while the rich gorged themselves and threw out more than whole families would see in a year. She had learned to hide it before she entered the Duke’s guard, and had kept it even more tightly leashed when Corvo chose her as his new Royal Protector; but she had very little incentive to conceal it now.

“Yes, I see it now,” the Heart murmured. “It has always driven you. Your drive. I—” The Heart’s voice wavered; had its words come from a human throat, she might have thought the speaker’s breath caught in their chest. She pressed a hand over the Heart, felt it beat more rapidly against her palm as if struggling to articulate a thought. “I? I always admired your drive.”

Jessamine’s throat ached; she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat, trying to ignore the prickling at the back of her eyes.

* * *

Somonos Outlook, the stronghold of the Oracular Order, was built on an otherwise barren plateau midway up Shindaerey Peak. A fortress that had been partially carved from the mountain itself, its high walls were polished smooth by the winds that swept down over the peak, the banners of the Order snapping smartly in the near-constant breeze. A lone tower rose up from one side of the fortress, its windows dark aside from the ones at the very top. Apparently that was where the High Oracle lived.

The night was a cloudy one, the moon obscured more often than not as the winds pushed heavy clouds across the sky. Somonos Outlook was situated only a few minutes away from the rail carriage station, at the end of a track spanning the plateau. It was well-trodden, despite the Order’s relative isolation. The Overseers did most of the ministering to the people, though seeking counsel from the Oracular Sisters was far from unheard of.

The air was much cooler up here than in the city below; there were no trees or buildings to buffer her from the cutting winds. Jessamine adjusted her mask carefully, tugging her hood more tightly around her face before checking her folding blade and her ammunition. Everything was where it should be. She lingered in the shadows of the station for a moment longer, trying to determine the most efficient route inside.

The only entrance that Jessamine could see was a gate set at the foot of the fortress, wide enough to fit four people abreast. Barred, of course. The windows on the ground level were all shuttered, as were the majority of the others— but there was one window on the second floor, opposite the tower, that was partially open, one of its shutters banging fitfully in the wind.

Anyone passing one of the uncovered windows would see Jessamine making her way up to the fortress, though the odds of them spotting her would be smaller if she moved while the moon was covered. The buffeting winds were too unpredictable for her to anticipate, however.

If only Somonos Outlook had a set of stocks installed in front of their stronghold, like Dunwall had at Holger Square. The public humiliation of heretics or disobedient Overseers had always seemed vaguely distasteful to Jessamine, but it would have been convenient if she could have found Callista left out in the elements now.

Jessamine clenched her left hand into a fist, the mark branded there flaring in response, briefly visible beneath the dark glove. She couldn’t turn back now. She needed the information Callista had, and if she could take out the Oracle helping Guerra in the process, so much the better.

The next time a cloud slid across the moon, Jessamine burst into action. She blinked partway across the distance and sprinted to the foot of the wall, pausing for breath as soon as she reached it. She slunk towards the far corner, beneath the partially unshuttered window and blinked up to the sill; fortunately, the room - a small bedroom in disarray - was empty. The mattress was dragged half off of the bed, the covers thrown in a heap in the corner, and a dresser was overturned.

Had some kind of struggle destroyed the room? Or had someone not bothered with covering their tracks as they searched for something?

Footsteps in the hallway outside made her tense up and she activated her dark vision, peering through the walls at the approaching person. They were clad in the trademark featureless mask and wide-sleeved robes of the Oracular Order, as Jessamine might have expected, and continued past the door to the room without pause. On patrol, or perhaps just out for a stroll. It was nearly midnight, though; the rail carriage up the mountain was not particularly swift.

As soon as the Sister disappeared deeper into the fortress, Jessamine slipped through the door.

A featureless hallway stretched out before her, extending further into the fortress in one direction, and running parallel to the front of the building in the other. There were doors similar to the one from which she had just exited at intervals, lacking any identification of what the rooms beyond contained.

More bedrooms, presumably. Jessamine had seen a number of horizontal figures earlier, when she'd used her dark vision. The Warfare Overseers did the bulk of the Abbey's enforcement, but supposedly the Oracles were trained to fight as well, which only gave her greater incentive not to awaken the slumbering women around her.

Callista probably wasn't being held on this floor. Somonos Overlook had a small detachment of Overseers who were in charge of apprehending heretics; Callista was likely being held wherever they kept their prisoners. An old fortress like this must have dungeons. There were always people willing to worship the Outsider - or marked by him even when they didn't particularly _believe_ in him, in Jessamine’s case - and while their numbers had declined in the current generation, the cells must have seen some use in recent years.

Footsteps from further down the hallway shook her from her thoughts and Jessamine glanced around for some place to hide. There was no conveniently placed decor or furniture for her to crouch under or behind, of course. The Abbey was a strong advocate of austerity; that stance would have seemed hypocritical if their clergy didn't ascribe to it.

But such an old fortress wasn't built with modern innovation and amenities in mind, and while some advancements could be passed off as luxuries, electricity had been deemed essential enough for lights and other powered technology to be installed in the Outlook. As a result, thick bands of sturdy cable hung suspended from the ceilings, with just enough space between for Jessamine to crouch. She blinked up hurriedly, just as another Oracular Sister rounded the corner.

She exhaled slowly and began to creep down the hallway in search of a set of stairs. The dungeon would be as likely a place to start looking for Callista as any.

* * *

A grand staircase near the centre of the building was the first way down that she encountered. It led up from the front entrance, by Jessamine's estimate, and the open area surrounding it was lit by a large, irritatingly bright fixture. It wasn't quite a chandelier - not ostentatious enough - but it certainly cast plenty of light, providing little cover for her to sneak through.

A portrait hung at the top of the stairs, the first sign of decoration Jessamine had come across in the entire fortress. She didn't recognize the subject, but it was painted in the Royal Physician's signature style. It must have been the High Oracle, though Jessamine had never seen the woman without her mask.

She was Serkonan, judging by her complexion, not that the fact surprised Jessamine. Most of the higher offices of the Empire were held by people of the ruling Isle; Jessamine and Daud were the most notable exceptions that she could bring to mind, and they had both been ousted following Corvo's murder. The High Oracle's eyes were the same shade of brown as Corvo's, but the expression on her face was detached and cold. Sokolov's portrait of Corvo tried to maintain distance, but there was always something warm and kind about Corvo's face that even Sokolov’s depiction couldn’t erase. Or perhaps Jessamine was simply biased.

The halls on either side of the staircase were deserted for the moment, so it was simple enough to cut the canvas from the frame and roll it up. Jessamine tucked it away and turned to go, but her eye caught on the small title plaque.

THE HIGH ORACLE'S REGAL BEARING

Jessamine raised an eyebrow. What _was_ the High Oracle's name? Vice Overseer Campbell had taken great pleasure in essentially shouting his name from the rooftops back in Dunwall - but it seemed the High Oracle was in possession of moderately more dignity.

Shaking her head - the High Oracle's name surely didn't matter - Jessamine slipped down to the first floor.

She found herself in the entrance hall, as she'd expected. It was decorated more grandly than the living quarters, with inscriptions of the Strictures arranged on the walls flanking the staircase. Several other large light fixtures hung from the ceiling. Jessamine blinked onto one, surveying the area. An Oracular Sister and an Overseer stood on either side of a door at the far end of the hall, facing the length of the large space, which was otherwise deserted.

As she watched, the Oracular Sister stepped away, beginning a circuit around the hall. Jessamine immediately pulled out her crossbow, sparing an irritated few moments to switch the standard wooden bolt for a sleep dart, and shot the Overseer. He collapsed, the sound of his body hitting the floor drawing the attention of the Oracle. Jessamine blinked down behind the woman, curling an arm around her neck and squeezing until she went limp.

She stashed them under the staircase, finding the key to the door they’d been guarding on the Oraclular Sister’s belt. She pocketed it along with a handful of coins and a grenade - hidden in one of the Overseer’s pockets - and headed through the door.

* * *

The dungeons were dark, lit intermittently by dim lights at large intervals. Several of them were burnt out, further lending to the oppressive atmosphere. It was eerily similar to Sofocaverno, an association that would have been unpleasant even before her six months’ imprisonment. The corridor opened onto a larger area, lit by a harsh floodlight aimed at the interrogation chair in its centre. Dirty cells separated only by bars covered the other three walls, so any prisoners would be forced to watch, or at least listen, to ongoing interrogations. Fortunately, they were all empty.

An Overseer, unmasked, paced just beyond the floodlight’s beam, visible only as a shadow against the bright light. An exhausted young woman was strapped in the chair, her face a grim mask that was belied by the way her eyes tracked the movement of the Overseer in front of her. The harsh light illuminated the dark bags under her eyes and the darker bruise high on one cheek; she had the same thin nose as Curnow.

“Just confess the identity of the person you were corresponding with, Sister, and this will all be over,” the Overseer urged, trying for compassion but coming up rather short. The effect was further ruined by the tool in his hand. “The High Oracle has ordered your branding as a heretic, but I will grant you a swift death if you prefer.” He brandished the long, slender implement; the brand in question, presumably.

Jessamine’s blood boiled as she remembered the press of the torturer’s brands and tools against her skin. She had been strapped in a chair similar to this one and exhorted to confess, and even if Callista was guilty, that didn’t mean she deserved _this_.

“He always gets the confessions he wants, even if they are not true,” the Heart said quietly. “He enjoys it.”

Callista gasped, her eyes widening in surprise when Jessamine rammed her blade through the Overseer’s back. She shoved him off unceremoniously, uncaring of the way he choked and twitched, clutching vainly at the wound as his lifeblood poured out onto the floor. It was already stained with blood and who knew what else; a bit more wouldn’t hurt it.

“Lady Protector,” Callista murmured with obvious relief, sagging back against the chair. “I foresaw your coming but— it was uncertain.”

Jessamine frowned behind the mask but began to open the restraints rather than questioning Callista; as soon as her hand was free, Callista gripped Jessamine’s hand in an iron grip that startled Jessamine with its strength.

“The High Oracle is the one helping Guerra. I thought it was one of the higher-ranking Sisters, not our leader.” Callista’s mouth twisted in regret and anger. “She hid her tracks well, and it was too late for me to escape by the time I realized.”

The High Oracle herself. How far did Guerra’s corruption spread? Jessamine’s hands clenched into fists, drawing a pained gasp from Callista. Jessamine released her hand immediately, chagrined, and bent back to the task of freeing her from the hated chair.

Callista offered her a faint smile. “I’ll be fine. You knocked out at least one of my sisters, did you not? If I can change into her uniform, I can make my way out of here.”

Jessamine looked her over. There were red marks where the restraints had dug into her skin, and those were the least of the injuries that were visible. Some of the implements spread across the tray next to her chair were still wet with blood. While Jessamine had been able to escape Sofocaverno in as pitiful a state, it had been one of the worst experiences of her life.

“I’ll be all right,” Callista assured her again. “I can wait for you in my room and we can leave together after you’ve dealt with the High Oracle, if you prefer.”

Jessamine pulled out her pad of paper and quickly scribbled, _Your room?_

“The room on the second floor with the broken shutter.”

She stared at Callista blankly. _You broke it on purpose?_ Jessamine asked after a few moments.

Callista smiled again. “It was easier to get into than the front gate, wasn’t it?” She stood carefully, obviously trying to hide the pain it caused her - but Jessamine had trained herself to catalogue weaknesses so thoroughly that it was instinct at this point. Callista favoured one leg, and some of her ribs were probably bruised, if not cracked; hopefully they weren’t broken outright.

“The uniform, Lady Protector,” Callista prompted.

Jessamine gave herself a mental shake and went to retrieve the unconscious Oracular Sister.

* * *

“The High Oracle should be in her office or her quarters. Both of them are located at the top of the tower,” Callista explained once Jessamine returned, her voice floating out of the darkness she had ducked into to pull on the uniform. Jessamine kept her back politely turned in any case; she wouldn’t appreciate someone looking her over for wounds even if it was for as benign a reason as concern. “You can access it through the elevator. There may be a few other Sisters with her, but no more than three.”

Jessamine turned as Callista neared. Her face was uncovered, but she had the mask in one hand, ready to put on. In the other, she was holding the branding iron that the Overseer had had earlier.

“This is the Heretic’s Brand. Any of the clergy marked with this brand will be cast out on the street and cut off from the support of the Abbey.”

Jessamine raised an eyebrow but accepted the brand, tucking it into her belt. Exile from the institution in which the High Oracle had clawed her way to the top would be a high fall indeed, figuratively and literally.

“The High Oracle also keeps a black book with her. I think it contains blackmail she has amassed over the years, but even if it is merely a journal, it may provide insight into the rest of Guerra’s plans,” Callista added.

Jessamine nodded, then gestured for Callista to precede her out of the dungeon.

Callista gave her another tired smile before she put the mask on. Coupled with the hood covering her head, she looked no different from any other Oracular Sister that Jessamine had encountered tonight. The fall of the wide sleeves covered not only the marks on her wrists, but her hands as well; fortunate, given the poor state of them.

She led Jessamine up to the main floor again, her gait steady enough that Jessamine had to watch closely to discern the slight hitch in her step whenever she put weight on her injured leg. They parted ways at the main staircase without a word, Callista climbing them to head for her room and Jessamine continuing past to reach the elevator that would take her to the top of the tower.

The tower was enclosed from the rest of the fortress, separated from the entrance hall by a thick wooden door. Spiraling stairs hugged the curved walls, extending upward and disappearing into the floor above. Light shone down the elevator shaft that had been cut into the floor on the far side of the tower. The elevator was an even more recent addition than the electricity, its shaft enclosed by grates that did little to conceal the identity of anyone riding the car. Anyone on the stairs, or on any of the floors above, would be able to see her.

It was past midnight, so hopefully the tower would be deserted aside from the High Oracle. But Callista had said only three Sisters would be with her, at most; she could take three opponents.

Jessamine stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor, crouching down so the wooden panels enclosing the lower portion of the car would provide some shelter from any passing eyes as the machine shuddered into motion.

The elevator opened on a large library: the famous Archives of the Oracular Order. In terms of history, its collection was unrivaled; Corvo used to sigh longingly over the volumes within. The Academy’s library was larger, but focused more on the various branches of natural philosophy.

Jessamine frowned, glancing at the panel, but it said that she was on the top floor. After a moment, she rolled her eyes; of course, the public elevator wouldn’t lead directly to the High Oracle’s quarters.

An Oracular Sister was passed out over a tome, her mask lying facedown on the carrel next to her. Jessamine crept around her, heading for the stairs. The stacks were otherwise deserted, and she slipped up the stairs unnoticed.

The door to the High Oracle’s office was unlocked, and when Jessamine peeked through the keyhole, she found it empty as well. A ladder set against one wall led to an open trapdoor; presumably, the High Oracle’s living quarters were beyond.

Jessamine stilled as a voice filtered down from above.

“—she gave me no choice. I’m involved whether I want it or not, but perhaps there is a way—”

That was the High Oracle’s voice. Jessamine had only heard it a handful of times, at Corvo’s side or from rare public broadcasts, but it was definitely her. Jessamine peered up with her dark vision, but a single figure paced on the floor above.

Jessamine slipped up the ladder, crouching near the top so the High Oracle wouldn’t see her. She waited until the woman’s back was turned before blinking to the top of the canopied bed dominating a large part of the admittedly luxurious room. The High Oracle’s quarters were much more lavishly appointed than Jessamine would have expected - plush carpets, expensive curtains, art from prominent artists adorning the walls.

The High Oracle continued her pacing, unaware of Jessamine’s presence, muttering to herself.

She pulled the Heart out, her other hand curling around the handle of the Heretic’s Brand. It was the fate the High Oracle had intended for Callista, and some part of Jessamine found the idea of kicking the Oracle out of her high tower to land in the filth of the streets, alone, highly appealing.

“She is not what she seems,” the Heart whispered when Jessamine pointed it at the High Oracle. “So many secrets surround her, I cannot see.”

That— was not particularly helpful. Jessamine adjusted her grip, frowning, and squeezed the Heart again.

“Many know her face, but few know her name.” Another squeeze prompted, “She blamed the Emperor, after.”

Jessamine narrowed her eyes.

The High Oracle was still muttering to herself. Her pacing, the furtive way she wrung her hands together, seemed guilty. Jessamine leaned closer, trying to listen.

“—course, the Emperor deserved to be punished, but—”

Jessamine’s folding blade slipped between her ribs before the High Oracle could finish that thought. Jessamine didn’t care what she had to say; there was no world in which Corvo _deserved_ to be murdered, much less by the person tasked with uncovering such plots before they could ever have to face Jessamine’s blade in the first place. How dare this woman, High Oracle or not, begin to suggest otherwise. How dare the High Oracle _help_ Guerra murder him.

The High Oracle choked, her hands grasping at Jessamine’s arm.

“No—!”

Jessamine twisted the blade, relishing the pained cry this drew from the other woman, and pushed her away.

The blood was almost indistinguishable on the High Oracle’s crimson robes, but for the way it glistened wetly in the light. The High Oracle didn’t even try to staunch the flow of blood, instead reaching up with shaking, bloody fingers to tug off her mask. Any sound from its fall was absorbed by the thick carpet covering the floor, not that Jessamine paid it any mind. The arcane symbols, similar to those Jessamine had seen on the runes and bone charms she collected earlier, carved into the inside of the mask were what caught her attention.

A few gasping moments later, the High Oracle went still, her brown eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling. Blood trickled from one corner of her slack mouth.

Jessamine knelt beside her, careful to avoid the blood soaking into the carpet, and picked up the mask. On the outside, it looked no different from the ones worn by every Oracular Sister. Perhaps the carvings were some kind of protection? But they looked like the symbols used by those who worshiped the Outsider. Besides, the Sister in the library below had no such sigils on the inside of her mask.

She hooked the High Oracle’s mask onto her belt to ask Callista about later, and turned back to the body. A quick search turned up a handful of gold coins, but no black book. A more thorough search didn’t reveal the book Callista had mentioned either. Frowning, Jessamine checked the usual places people might hide something so valuable - again, nothing.

She did find a pair of runes at the bottom of the wardrobe, wrapped in scraps of old cloth. With those, she had enough power to improve her dark vision, but even the improved sight didn’t net Jessamine the black book. A gaudy jewelry box filled with gold accessories unbefitting of a High Oracle, a volume on the Attano family’s history, and a few ingots of gold, but no black book. After a final glance around the room, Jessamine slipped back down into the office.

The black book wasn’t hidden among any of the other books, or in a false drawer in the desk, or _anywhere_. Frustrated, and aware that it was now nearly two in the morning, Jessamine gave it up as a bad job and headed down to meet with Callista.

She found Callista asleep on her bed; she roused quickly enough, her eyes wide and panicked before she recognized Jessamine. Without exchanging any words, written or spoken, they slipped out the window. Clouds blanketed the sky, blotting out the stars and the moon and providing them with a reassuring cover as they made their way to the rail carriage.

Callista dozed off again as they descended towards Karnaca, and Jessamine waited until the station in Cyria Gardens was in sight before waking her.

It was good that she did; the rest of the patrol had noticed their missing comrades and was searching the area. The screech of the rail carriage entering the station drew their attention, and Jessamine had only a few seconds to react; already, the guards were shouting and running up the stairs.

She shot out one of the panes of the skylight with her crossbow, wrapped her right arm around Callista’s waist, and blinked up to the roof. Callista’s arms came up around Jessamine’s neck, but her grip seemed startled rather than meant to hurt her. Jessamine all but carried her to the edge of the roof, aimed for the nearest balcony, and blinked again.

Callista gasped, one hand fumbling at her mask. She managed to get it off as Jessamine blinked them to the mouth of an alley, and bent over to retch.

Jessamine scanned the street impatiently, her folding blade in hand; she kept an eye on Callista too, in case the Oracular Sister decided to make an issue of their means of escape.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Callista whispered raggedly, wiping at her mouth with the edge of one sleeve. “I— This explains how you got up to my room without any kind of rope.”

Jessamine studied her for several moments, then nodded sharply.

Callista returned it. “We should move on before they start searching the streets.”

Jessamine turned and led her through the shadows. The alarm had been raised, and the guards were on higher alert, but they made it to the canal and Thomas without further incident.

“You’re safe, thank the— uh,” Thomas stuttered, biting back the rest of the oath as his eyes darted to Callista. Still, the unspoken _Outsider_ hung in the air between them.

“Yes,” Callista murmured, accepting his hand to help her into the boat, “thank the Outsider.”

In spite of herself, Jessamine laughed.


	5. pedagogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **pedagogue**  
>  _noun_  
>  1\. a teacher; schoolteacher.  
> 2\. a person who is pedantic, dogmatic, and formal.

News of the High Oracle’s death had broken when Jessamine woke the next morning. The loudspeaker strung up outside Stilton’s manor had started working more frequently, just in time for the hourly broadcasts about an “unknown assailant” who had “murdered guards, Oracular Sisters and Overseers” the night before. It wasn’t technically a lie - she’d killed a guard, and an Overseer, and the High Oracle - but it was far from the slaughter the announcer made it out to be.

Breakfast - more of a brunch, in truth - was a sombre affair. Jessamine had taken her broth in her room - she wasn’t embarrassed that she had to drink it from the bowl, as swallowing spoonfuls was too much of an ordeal without a tongue, but it was a weakness she didn’t want to show the Loyalists - and she watched the others pick at their food with a little envy. But her stomach was probably still too delicate from six months of short rations to handle richer fare, not to mention the hassle of actually ingesting it, in any case.

Callista looked marginally better after a few hours’ sleep, but the bruise beneath one eye was even more obvious. Curnow kept glancing at her, as if checking that she was safe. He’d thanked Jessamine profusely before leading Callista to her room the night before, the lasting hug uncle and niece exchanged transitioning into his arm around her waist, supporting most of her weight.

It was Daud who broached the subject of their shared goal, interjecting after Callista had answered Stilton’s polite inquiry into some theological matter or another. “I know you’ve been through a lot, Oracle Curnow, but is there anything you can tell us about Guerra’s plans?”

Callista took a sip of her tea. “No. My visions were unclear. They only revealed the High Oracle’s involvement too late, and as for what else Guerra plans to do, or who her chief supporters are? I have no idea.”

“Your visions?” Stilton asked, glancing from Jessamine to Callista.

 _I thought the Oracles’ “prophecies” were actually predictions based on history,_ Jessamine explained.

Callista nodded. “They are, for the most part. Even within our sect, most believe that to be the case. However, there were always several Sisters who could look into the Void in truth and see glimpses of what was to come. Interpreting the fragments was more difficult.”

“There _were_?” Daud presses before Jessamine can write the question herself.

“The High Oracle was slowly eliminating us. I’m the only one left in Serkonos.”

“An attempt to hide her corruption?” But Daud didn’t sound convinced by his own conclusion.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t aware of her involvement with Guerra until recently. The others were already dead or gone.” Callista frowned down at her tea. She leaned against her uncle when he put an arm around her.

“Well, the High Oracle is out of the picture, in any case,” Stilton said, casting another glance at Jessamine.

 _She helped Guerra kill ~~Cor~~ the Emperor,_ Jessamine wrote, nearly tearing through the sheet of paper with how viciously she wrote the words. She wouldn’t apologize for killing the High Oracle.

Stilton averted his gaze and visibly steeled himself before making to speak again.

Callista beat him to it, shrugging off Curnow’s arm and leaning forward to address Stilton. “Guerra must suspect who was wearing the mask. Lying about how many people Lady Jess killed will only serve to discredit her.”

“Lying—?” Some of the tension drained out of Stilton. “So you didn’t kill all those guards?”

Explaining herself to him was irritating; she had done something none of them could have accomplished by rescuing Callista and eliminating the High Oracle. How dare they judge her for it? But the small part of her that wasn’t constantly _seething_ could understand Stilton’s doubt.

_I killed one guard last night; he was cruel and deserved it. And I killed the Overseer torturing Callista._

“Well, if they deserved it.” Stilton trailed off, still not looking entirely convinced, but let the matter go.

“If we’re sufficiently convinced of Jess’ righteousness, can we move on?” Daud’s sarcastic words cut through the tension. “The High Oracle can’t be Guerra’s only major supporter.”

“Did you find the High Oracle’s book, Lady Jess?” Callista asked.

Jessamine shook her head. _I searched her body and her quarters, including her office. There was no black book._

Callista frowned thoughtfully. “Perhaps she— No. Surely there isn’t someone else she could entrust such an incriminating record to? This doesn’t make any sense.”

 _Her mask had strange carvings inside of it,_ Jessamine added. There hadn’t been a good time to bring it up when they made it here, but she didn’t want to forget about it.

“Carvings?” Callista echoed blankly.

Jessamine pulled out the High Oracle’s mask and held it up to show Callista, who stared at the symbols with a deepening frown.

“Those look heretical,” Curnow said. Jessamine tilted the mask so Stilton and Daud, seated opposite the Curnows, could see as well. Stilton just looked confused, but Daud—

The former Admiral looked like he recognized the arcane carvings.

Jessamine set the mask down on the table in front of her and surreptitiously palmed the Heart. No one else could see it, though they would see her hand curled around seemingly empty air. It wasn’t remotely as incriminating, but Jessamine was more paranoid and suspicious now than she had ever been.

“Daud. Admiral,” the Heart whispered. “He has killed men and beasts, but he took no pleasure in it.” When she squeezed it again, it added, “They called him the son of a witch. He never knew his father.”

Jessamine had heard all sorts of rumours about Daud’s mother, a woman from Pandyssia who had held the rank of Admiral for years by the time Jessamine arrived in Serkonos. But she had never heard anyone call her a witch - she certainly hadn’t seemed like a witch on the one occasion that Jessamine had met her. Before she could prompt the Heart for more secrets, Callista spoke.

“Those carvings are definitely not Abbey-sanctioned. I’ve seen them before, of course, but they’re occult symbols associated with magic and the Outsider.” Her gaze darted to Jessamine, but she said nothing else on the topic, as she’d promised. Whether Jessamine could trust her to keep quiet about the mark on the back of her hand while she was away was another matter entirely.

“She and her uncle - the last of the Curnow family,” the Heart whispered, but the conversation was moving too swiftly for Jessamine to use it again. She’d have to try to find out more about them later.

“So one of Guerra’s supporters is a witch?” Stilton scrubbed a hand over his face.

“My mother always told me to never make an enemy of a witch,” Daud muttered, glaring down at the mask.

“Let’s burn that bridge when we come to it,” was Curnow’s wry suggestion.

 _Assuming Guerra doesn’t get to it first._ That earned a few chuckles from her allies.

“Right,” Daud said. “Our priorities are finding Lady Emilia and eroding Guerra’s support base. The High Oracle was a valuable ally, but Guerra must have others. She’s paying off the Grand Guard, but there’s no way she has that kind of coin personally, so someone else must be financing her. She also has the support of Parliament, but if she loses a few key votes that could easily change.”

 _We need to find Emilia._ Jessamine regretted killing the High Oracle now; she should have interrogated the woman about Emilia’s whereabouts first, though the logistics of that were murkier. Keeping up with this conversation was difficult enough.

“If we go through enough of Guerra’s supporters, eventually one of them will know where the princess is held.”

_I can’t exactly interrogate them._

“Guerra will likely panic as her support disappears,” Stilton disagreed with a frown. “She could send Lady Emilia away, or worse.”

“Moving her means someone will see it,” Daud countered.

 _Who else is close to Guerra?_ Jessamine asked, before the two could dissolve into pointless bickering. Again. _My next target should be someone high in her confidence who’ll know where Emilia is._

The table fell silent as the other Loyalists mulled the question over.

“Her lover would know. Sokolov was complaining about having to paint him the last time we spoke,” Daud said at length.

“Who is her lover?” Curnow asked.

Jessamine was at a loss as well; Guerra had rarely given her so much as the time of day, but she’d had few qualms about speaking to Corvo as if Jessamine wasn’t there. Guerra had never mentioned a lover. As far as secrets went, a secret lover was relatively benign - and it wasn’t as if Jessamine could judge her for it, considering her own relationship with Corvo - but it just went to show how little Guerra had trusted Corvo in the first place.

“I can think of several possibilities, but I don’t have solid proof that any of them were truly involved with Guerra,” Stilton said ruefully.

“We should ask Doctor Sokolov then,” Callista said. When they all looked at her, she bore it calmly. “Kidnap him and bring him here, or somewhere else that we can interrogate him. At the moment, Sokolov is Guerra’s best hope for curing the plague, and the heightened security measures deployed around the city are his doing as well. Losing him will put Guerra off balance.”

“He spends most of his time at the Academy of Natural Philosophy, which is almost as heavily guarded as the Palace itself,” Curnow said. “Kirin mentioned tools to rewire the Walls of Light and other security devices, but he only has a few.”

“I attended the Academy for a season or two,” Daud said slowly, as if he already regretted sharing that information about himself. “There’s a back way in through the sewers; it wasn’t well known when I was a student, but that could have changed.”

Jessamine hadn’t known that Daud had attended the Academy, but then again she hadn’t known about Guerra’s lover either. An incomplete education at the Academy was hardly unusual or noteworthy, but it did mean Daud was showing depths that she had previously been unaware of, and that was more troubling.

“I knew him well when we were boys,” the Heart murmured, sounding almost wistful. “But once we were grown, duty and responsibility eventually separated us.”

Jessamine resisted the urge to scowl and tucked the Heart away again, picking up her pen in its stead.

 _I’ll use the sewer entrance to get inside, or find some other way if it’s blocked off._ Jessamine reached for the High Oracle’s mask once she’d shown them the message, intending to collect her things and head down to Kirin to replenish her supplies.

“I’d like to look into the High Oracle’s mask if you don’t mind,” Callista said. “Those markings are very unusual.”

Jessamine tilted her head, then shrugged and left the mask where it was. It was useless to her, in any case.

“Are you certain you’re rested enough—” Stilton fell silent, chagrined, when Jessamine glared at him.

 _I appreciate your concern but I’m fine,_ Jessamine wrote. It wasn’t entirely a lie - she did appreciate that they weren’t simply throwing her headlong at various targets without her input. But on another level, the lack of faith in her abilities was irritating. _We need to move while Guerra is still off balance. I should leave as soon as possible. Unless there is someone else you think I should abduct instead._

“No,” Stilton sighed. “Good luck, Lady Jess.”

She smiled at him and left to see Kirin.

* * *

The heavy clouds from last night had settled in to stay, blanketing Karnaca in a sombre grey that was better-suited to Dunwall. It was cooler than usual, and more humid; it was probably going to rain soon.

As soon as Jessamine had that thought, the sky opened up.

Thomas cursed and pulled the hood of his jacket up, breaking into a jog to reach the stairs leading down to Karnaca’s waterways. Jessamine followed at a more sedate pace, enjoying the sound of the rain. Her coat was thick and her boots were sturdy; a few minutes in the downpour wouldn’t hurt any.

“Glad you’re enjoying yourself, Lady Jess,” Thomas grumbled half-heartedly when she joined him at the top of the stairs.

 _I would have expected a navy man to have a better appreciation for water,_ Jessamine wrote, not bothering to suppress her smirk; the mask covered it in any case.

“That’s hilarious,” Thomas said flatly. “You and Admiral Daud should start a comedy act to help raise funds for our cause.”

_Daud would have to wear a mask too or his face would scare the audience away._

Thomas snorted, then immediately looked guilty. “We should get moving.”

Jessamine nodded and followed him down to the canal. The boat was moored where they had left it, and Thomas quickly made it ready for them to depart for Cyria Gardens once more.

The ride passed without incident, Thomas making absent conversation that didn’t require much - if any - input from her. He fell silent whenever they passed into the open air, perhaps in deference to Jessamine’s difficulty in answering under the rain. Her paper was hardly waterproof.

Mostly, she paid him little mind, occupied with one particular issue that had arisen during her briefing with the Loyalists: the secrets that the Heart revealed. Some of them were useful, but others were less so. Through the Heart, Jessamine learned secrets about people that she might have preferred not knowing, and that bothered her for reasons that weren’t readily apparent.

As they neared Cyria Gardens, it came to her.

Corvo had always seen more than he let on. He’d thought at least five different things, and said only one of them, conveying precisely what he meant and nothing more. Hearing him now, making mundane observations about the environment and the people around her, or worse, spilling secrets that Jessamine would have rather not known—

Jessamine wasn’t the woman she once was. The Loyalists wanted an assassin more than they wanted a protector. She didn’t even know if she knew how to protect people any longer. She should have refused when the Outsider tried to give her the Heart. She should have stopped using it once she realized whose voice spoke through it. She should at least attempt to confront the Outsider about the Heart’s origin.

But she could not. The cobbled, twisted thing was all that remained of Corvo, and she was too selfish to let him go.

* * *

The entrance to the Academy that Daud had mentioned was still accessible, though she had to creep past several shambling weepers to reach it. A Wall of Light blocked it from the sewers proper, but the control panel was on her side of the crackling wall and once she’d rewired it with the tool Kirin had traded her, it was easy to pass through.

The door into the Academy’s basement was unlocked, and slipping inside unnoticed was a simple matter. The basement was full of old and broken equipment, machines left in the middle of the floor with their mechanical and wire innards exposed or missing entirely. Jessamine took the opportunity to pocket several coils of copper wire - Kirin had complained about the difficulty of acquiring it earlier. Someone had also hidden a stash of whale bone artifacts inside a hollowed-out console; she grabbed those as well.

The corridors of the ground floor were busier. There were a few maintenance staff walking around, but it was a pair of cleaners on break that provided Jessamine with some indication of Sokolov’s location.

“Doctor Sokolov got another batch of test subjects a few days ago,” the man muttered, glaring darkly into his mug.

“Didn’t he just get some new ones in last week? I can’t keep track of them anymore,” his companion sighed.

“Well, it’s not like you’re the one who has to tidy up his private lab.”

“Shit. That sounds creepy. I can’t stand weepers.” She shuddered.

“They’re not weepers, they’re healthy people!” the man hissed, leaning forward and jostling the table. “He infects them with the plague to test his cure.”

The woman grimaced. “That’s— look, it’s shitty for them, but how else is he going to find a cure?”

“How can you—? _We_ could be in there and he wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about us either.”

“All right, all right.” The woman raised her hands defensively. “I get it, seeing them is upsetting. I’ll clean his lab today. Where is it again?”

“That’s not what I—” The man blew out a frustrated breath and slumped back in his chair. “It’s tucked away in the far corner of the Academy. Ground floor. But don’t go now. You have to clean it when he isn’t around or he’ll snip at you to watch his delicately calibrated machines. Late afternoon is usually safe.”

“Got it.” The woman rolled her eyes. “I swear, if Doctor Sokolov wasn’t such a genius, he’d be insufferable.”

Jessamine crept away as the pair descended into complaints about various natural philosophers. She’d visited the Academy on several occasions, at Corvo’s side, but she had only vague memories of its layout - and she’d never seen Sokolov’s private lab that she could recall. But she kept heading towards the back of the building with a few short detours to collect a couple of runes and a bone charm, glad that the man had specified it was on the ground floor.

About half an hour later, she found the lab. Its door was locked, the mechanism more elaborate than most. It wasn’t as ridiculous as Kirin’s lock on Stilton’s manor - how the rotating tiles could be considered a lock by any stretch of the imagination was still beyond her - but Jessamine’s distant memories of picking locks back in Dunwall fell far short of the complex design before her.

Fortunately, the ventilation system was exposed and suspended from the ceiling. The vent that serviced Sokolov’s lab entered the room directly above the door frame, and the rest of the wall above it had been cut away, leaving a space for her to crawl through.

As the cleaner had said, a small group of people was corralled in massive cages along one wall. A couple of dirty pallets were pushed up against the wall, but the conditions looked cramped and awful. Most of the test subjects were sitting or lying down, but one of them was pacing restlessly before the bars and spotted her the moment she dropped down into the lab.

“Who are you?!”

His startled words alerted the others, most of whom rose to cluster near the first man. They all spoke at once, exclaiming over her appearance and pleading for help until their words blended into an incoherent babble.

Jessamine pressed a finger to the mask, over the leering grin, and walked over to them. _Is there a key?_ she wrote quickly.

“No, only Sokolov has one,” the first man spat.

“You can use that saw to cut out the lock!” one of the women said, pointing.

Jessamine glanced over and frowned. It looked like one of the machines the butchers in whale slaughterhouses used; why Sokolov would require something like that, she had no idea. Either way, using that to free them would be loud and potentially dangerous, but if there wasn’t any other alternative—

“Or you could grab those lockpicks and give them to me,” a scruffier woman drawled. “I can have this cage open in no time.”

“Hurry,” the man urged. “Sokolov comes to check on us every four hours like clockwork!”

“Shut up with that clockwork shit,” the young man lying on the pallet muttered. He was the only test subject who hadn’t risen with the others, and he seemed content to glare at the wall in front of him now.

“It’s true!” the man insisted, his voice climbing. “Don’t you check the clocks when Sokolov comes? Every day at six in the morning, then ten, then two in the afternoon, then six—”

“I said shut up!”

Jessamine hastened to bring the lockpicks back over, hoping to forestall the conflict that was threatening to break out. The scruffy woman took them with a grin and knelt down, an ear pressed to the back of the lock as she began to pick it blindly.

Jessamine glanced at the clock. A quarter to two. The lock disengaged with a soft click, and the door swung open with a slight protest of hinges.

“ _Thank you,_ ” the anxious man breathed, grabbing her hand in a tight grip and pumping it quickly. He hastened off with the others, most of whom muttered their gratitude as well, though thankfully they didn’t try to touch her. The door leading to the rest of the Academy was bolted from the inside, and they were able to slip out despite lacking a key as well, fortunately; Jessamine wasn’t certain if the woman could have picked that one so easily.

She locked the door behind them and pulled out the Heart, which had started beating wildly when she neared the cages. When she aimed it at the bookshelf nearest the cages, its frantic thumping resumed. Upon closer inspection with her dark gaze, she found a book that glowed blue; when she tried to pull it out, there was a solid _thunk_ and the sound of a mechanism engaging. The entire bookcase swung out from the wall, revealing a hidden room.

Violet light spilled past the opening, cast by a number of lanterns scattered around the small space. At its centre, in a circle of arcane symbols drawn in a combination of blood and whale oil, was an altar. Its construction was much more elaborate than the one she’d seen at the rail station, made not from cast off and old pieces of wood but from finely carved planks. The fabric was equally expensive, the indigo threaded liberally with gold patterns.

Jessamine stared. She’d heard rumours of Sokolov’s interest in the Outsider and the Void, but she hadn’t thought him stupid or arrogant enough to erect a shrine in his private laboratory. If the Overseers ever found it, she doubted Corvo would have been able to stop them hauling Sokolov off as a heretic.

Jessamine picked up the rune, hoping the Outsider’s speech would not last too long, but though the rune stopped hissing, the youthful deity made no appearance. She waited in front of the altar for several seconds, frowning, but when the lanterns did not dim and the temperature remained steady, she gave a shrug and tucked the rune away.

Sokolov had also hung his own self-portrait above the altar. The only thing that surprised Jessamine about the entire setup was the fact that the swoops of fabric partially obscured Sokolov’s work. From this side, Sokolov’s face wasn’t visible, though the portrait’s subject was obvious from the impressive beard. She rolled her eyes and stepped around the altar to cut the picture from its frame.

LIGHT ALONG THE INVERSE CURVE, SOKOLOV’S SELF PORTRAIT, according to the title set in the bottom of the gilt frame. What a mouthful.

Jessamine rolled the canvas up and tucked it away. Kirin had gotten her three hundred coin for the portrait of the High Oracle; Sokolov’s self portrait might even go for more. That accomplished, she pulled the lever set inside the doorway and slipped through as the bookcase swung back into position.

The entire discovery had taken only a few minutes. Sokolov was due in another five. Jessamine settled in to wait, perching atop one of the bookshelves near the door as the hour neared.

As the imprisoned man had said, the sound of a key inserted into the door’s lock heralded Sokolov’s arrival precisely at two o’clock. He was muttering to himself as he entered the lab, face creased in thought. He turned and locked the door again before raising his head, and he stiffened when he noticed the empty cages. But rather than running over to investigate, as she had expected, he looked around wildly, scanning the lab - and spotting her crouched above him.

In his split-second of frozen confusion and fear, she dropped down, intending to pin him beneath her weight. But he managed to stumble back, scrambling away from her and putting a cluttered counter between them. Later, she’d be angry at her own ineptitude; but he hadn’t yelled for help yet, so that was something.

“Who—”

Jessamine pulled out her crossbow, but the sleep dart shattered against a blackboard filled with notes and equations as Sokolov ducked behind the counter. She darted towards the side he was closest to, her boots silent on the tile as she rounded the corner of the work surface.

“Wait! If you kill me, you lose the only chance of discovering a cure for the plague!” Sokolov cringed as she raised her crossbow, his hands raised defensively - but they dropped as he stared at her, recognition flickering across his face. “Jess?”

She stopped with her finger on the trigger, startled.

“It _is_ you,” Sokolov said, relaxing. “I admit, I had considered that you were the masked miscreant responsible for the chaos yesterday— but given the six months you spent in prison, I’m surprised you were able to accomplish so much in such a short time.”

Jessamine lowered her crossbow and tilted her head to the side; how had he deduced her identity so swiftly?

Sokolov waved a hand dismissively in answer to her unvoiced question as he climbed to his feet. “You’ve obviously lost weight, but I would still recognize your figure and gait anywhere.”

Jessamine narrowed her eyes, though the motion was hidden behind the mask. Sokolov was a serial philanderer, but that was a bit much even for him.

Perhaps sensing the bend of her thoughts, Sokolov quickly added, “You were always at the Emperor’s side; we’ve seen each other numerous times! Surely you could recognize me on the same basis.”

Jessamine inclined her head. She’d prepared several notes while she was waiting - some more overtly threatening than others - but she hadn’t counted on Sokolov divining who she was. She pulled out her pad of paper and began to write.

“Did Guerra actually cut out your tongue?” Sokolov sounded scandalized - an impressive feat, considering how shameless the man was.

Jessamine waved her free hand back and forth— not exactly.

“Obviously she wouldn’t have done the deed herself but— all the same, ordering it done doesn’t lessen her culpability,” Sokolov said uncomfortably.

Jessamine crossed out what she had been writing and started over. _She ordered Corvo’s death. This is tame in comparison._ Not to mention Sokolov apparently had few qualms about deliberately infecting innocent people with the plague. Since he still hadn’t discovered a cure, that was as good as a death sentence for them.

“She—” Sokolov cut himself off, and took a slow breath before speaking again. “I thought she was merely capitalizing on his death, not the mastermind behind it!”

_So you weren’t in on it._

“Of course not!”

_Good to know._

“How could you presume,” Sokolov began, outraged, but fell silent as Jessamine looked pointedly around them.

The upgraded equipment and the massive cages - now empty - along one wall spoke for themselves. Corvo would never had condoned purposely infecting healthy citizens; he would probably have balked at the thought of testing potential cures on weepers.

“A cure must be found,” Sokolov said stiffly. There was a stubborn set to his mouth, hardly unfamiliar; but the usual confident, self-righteous gleam in his eyes was absent. So he did know, on some level, that the lengths he was going to find a cure were wrong.

Satisfied that her point had been made, Jessamine went back to writing.

“I suppose you’re working with that hack, Jindosh,” Sokolov muttered. “That mask has his style - or lack of it, rather - written all over it.”

Jessamine bit back a growl of annoyance. Sokolov’s tendency to jump from topic to topic had been annoying when she had a tongue; she couldn’t keep up with the changing subject now, and had little interest or patience for pandering to his ego.

 _You’re coming with me, and you’ll tell us everything you know about Guerra,_ she wrote, cutting to the chase. Either Sokolov would agree, or she’d knock him out and carry him back to Thomas and the boat. She’d prefer the former, but was fully expecting the latter.

Sokolov’s gaze darted to the door; he raised his hands defensively when Jessamine readied her crossbow. “Wait! I’ll come with you, but at least allow me to gather some equipment. I’m certain whatever setup Jindosh has will be vastly inferior to my laboratory here.”

Jessamine rolled her eyes, but flapped her empty hand impatiently at him.

He didn’t waste any time on thanks, hurrying around the large space and packing things - a microscope, several jars of reddish liquid and various other objects - into a large bag.

Jessamine kept half an eye on him while she pocketed several doses of crimson elixir; Jindosh might squawk at the implication that his remedy wasn’t sufficient, but having extra stocks couldn’t hurt either.

About fifteen minutes later, Sokolov came back over to her with two bags, one of them bulging from its contents. Jessamine shook her head when Sokolov tried to hand her the latter, annoyed.

“Everything in these bags is _essential_ ,” Sokolov insisted. “I would carry this one myself, but anyone seeing me would wonder why I would want to take this equipment with me!”

Jessamine huffed but took the damn sack, securing the straps over her shoulders. It was heavy, but she could always dump it as a last resort.

She held up the directions she’d written out while Sokolov was gathering all of his apparently _essential_ equipment, outlining the path they would take once they exited the Academy.

Sokolov scanned it quickly, then nodded and took the note from her. He tucked it into a pocket and exited the lab, checking for anyone in the hall.

At his second nod, Jessamine slipped into the hall as well, ready to blink away if anyone came into view. She didn’t want to reveal her mark to Sokolov, but if came down to revealing it or capture, she wouldn’t hesitate.

“You’ll follow?” Sokolov asked, sounding doubtful. She’d said as much in the note, but apparently he needed further confirmation.

She nodded impatiently, gesturing for him to begin walking. As soon as he’d turned his back and started off, she blinked up to the exposed ventilation system. The added weight of the junk on her back made the metal vent groan, and Sokolov glanced back, startled; when he didn’t see her, his expression grew even more alarmed.

She tapped on the vent, peering over the side at him. His eyes eyes widened when he saw her crouched above him.

“How— Never mind, that’s hardly important now,” Sokolov muttered to himself, shaking his head. He turned back and continued walking.

The creaking of the vents was annoying, but the slower she crept along, the less obtrusive it was. Sokolov caught on in the next hallway, moderating his pace so she could keep up with him.

They passed several people on their way to the basement - mainly maintenance staff who ducked their heads and murmured respectfully as Sokolov neared, and didn’t seem surprised when he didn’t deign to acknowledge them.

Disaster struck just as they entered the corridor that led to the stairs down.

“Doctor Sokolov!” The call echoed down the otherwise empty hallway.

Sokolov froze, then made to look up at her before catching himself. He turned to face the guard hurrying toward them. “There’s no need to shout, I’m not deaf,” he snapped. “What is so damned important?”

The guard halted, bracing his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. “The test subjects, sir— We caught some of them trying to escape out the front entrance.”

Sokolov glanced up at her, eyes wide, while the guard remained bent over.

Outsider’s crooked cock, they did not need this complication. But she’d been the one to free them. Jessamine nodded quickly, hoping Sokolov would understand.

Sokolov squared his jaw and looked back at the guard. “Take me to them,” he ordered haughtily.

Once they had turned the corner, Jessamine gingerly let the bulging sack rest on top of the vent, then hurried after them. Unfettered by the frankly ridiculous weight of the equipment, it was easy for her to silently catch up and keep pace with the two men. It would have been simple to slip down and choke out the guard and escape with Sokolov, but she couldn’t just abandon those innocent people. Corvo wouldn’t forgive her if she left them to the guards.

The test subjects that Jessamine had released had made it all the way to the atrium. The vents ended with the hallway, leaving Jessamine without an obvious way forward - barring walking the same path as Sokolov. That alternative was hardly ideal; the atrium was a vast open space, several stories tall with a front wall and ceiling made up entirely of windows. It was a terrible place to sneak through even at the best of times. The rain echoed around the empty space, more than sufficient to muffle her footsteps, but Sokolov’s much-vaunted electricity was powering the lights around the room, eliminating any shadows the dark clouds might have lent her.

A squad of guards had corralled the test subjects Jessamine had released earlier, holding them at sword- and gunpoint just in front of the doors. They’d spot her as soon as she set foot in the atrium.

“Ah, Doctor!” the officer called, spotting him coming into the atrium at her subordinate’s heel. “These test subjects nearly escaped.”

“They didn’t escape,” Sokolov blustered. “I released them, you fool!”

The test subjects glanced among themselves, one of them going so far as to open his mouth to protest. The others quickly hushed him, wisely remaining silent on the matter.

“But don’t they have the plague?” the officer asked. “If you’re done with them, then—”

Jessamine was trying to figure out if she had the capacity to bend time and shoot most of the guards with sleep darts before they turned their weapons on the test subjects when Sokolov spoke again.

“They don’t have the plague. My latest batch of the disease hasn’t arrived yet, and I don’t want to waste valuable resources keeping them here in the meantime!”

Jessamine stared at the back of Sokolov’s head. But he was reputed to be the most intelligent man in the Empire, so perhaps his quick-thinking shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

The officer was quiet for so long that Jessamine pulled out her crossbow in anticipation of having to knock out as many guards as she could.

“I see,” the officer said at length, her solicitous tone replaced by coldness. “Well, in future, we’d appreciate if you informed us. Wouldn’t want any more misunderstandings. It’d be a shame if there was an— accident.” She leaned forward as she uttered the last word, her voice dropping so Jessamine had to strain to hear it over the sound of the rain.

The test subjects, sensing that the focus had turned from them to Sokolov as the guards sheathed their swords and holstered their pistols, practically ran out into the downpour.

Of course, the officer’s threat had the opposite effect on Sokolov. Jessamine bit back a groan, resigning herself to extracting Sokolov from a brawl as the man drew himself up indignantly—

— then deflated.

“I understand, Captain Garcia. I shall endeavour to keep that in mind for the future.” The words sounded like they were forced past clenched teeth, anything _but_ sincere, but the forced concession seemed to appease Garcia all the same.

“Thank you, Doctor Sokolov. I’m sure you have lots of work to do, so why don’t you get back to it?”

“I will,” Sokolov gritted out. His face, twisted in an attempt at neutrality, dropped into fury as soon as he turned fully around. Garcia watched him go, obviously amused.

* * *

Thomas was waiting where she had left him, pacing back and forth across the dock beside the boat. He looked surprised to see Sokolov, but he relaxed visibly when Jessamine followed him down the steps. As they hurried over to him, Thomas boarded the skiff and began preparing for them to leave.

Sokolov winced when Jessamine dropped her bag unceremoniously into the bottom of the boat, putting his own - considerably lighter - load down more gently.

“You should put this on. The hood will help cover your face, Doctor Sokolov.” Thomas held his jacket out to him.

Sokolov accepted the garment without protest and pulled the hood up. If he kept his head down - a difficult feat for a man such as the Royal Physician - it would be difficult for anyone not on water near them to see his face.

“I’m Thomas, by the way,” the young man said.

Sokolov fixed Thomas with a sharp look. “I remember. One of Daud’s favoured officers. I take it he’s involved in all of this?”

“Ah—” Thomas was obviously blindsided by Sokolov’s astute deduction. “No?”

“Don’t bother lying,” Sokolov sniffed. “Your expression says it all. Who else is in on this?”

Thomas glanced at Jessamine, then busied himself with piloting when he saw she had her paper out.

_You’ll find out soon._

“I cannot contain my excitement,” Sokolov muttered, but managed to restrain himself from further vitriol as they made their way back to Batista.

* * *

Predictably, Sokolov scoffed at Kirin’s lock, but he turned away when Jessamine looked at him pointedly. Thomas flipped the tiles quickly, opening the gate in a matter of moments. He held it open to allow them past, and Jessamine led Sokolov into the manor as Thomas locked up again behind them. Jaime, working in one of the garden beds near the front door, directed them to the same sitting room the Loyalists had briefed her in yesterday.

Callista was absent, but the three men at the head of their conspiracy were all present.

“Who are you?” Disdain dripped from Sokolov’s words as he looked over, and summarily dismissed, Curnow and Stilton. Curnow just rolled his eyes, equally unimpressed, but Stilton wilted at the contempt. “I’ll speak to Daud and Jess only. You can show me to whatever inferior setup Jindosh has afterward.”

“So you’ll work with Kirin,” Daud drawled, and Jessamine bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smirking at the series of expressions that crossed Sokolov’s face - horror, disgust and indignation, among others.

“If I must,” Sokolov ground out sourly.

“Excellent. Jess and I can fill you in later,” Daud added to Curnow and Stilton. Neither of them looked particularly pleased at being excluded, but they left without voicing any protest.

Sokolov made himself comfortable in one of the armchairs; Jessamine sat on the couch, and Daud paced over from the window to join her.

“I’m not certain where to start,” Sokolov said at length. “Guerra used me to further her own ends, and I did the same. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that she could never trust someone born outside of Serkonos.”

“That’s an understatement,” Daud scoffed, but his amusement soon faded. “Our priority is locating and rescuing Lady Emilia.”

“I have no idea where the princess is,” Sokolov said swiftly.

“We didn’t think you would. But the last time you and I spoke, you mentioned that Guerra had commissioned a portrait of her lover, and we suspect that he will know where Lady Emilia is being kept.”

Sokolov’s expression soured. “Yes, how could I forget? Guerra went to such lengths to keep his identity a mystery and within five minutes the secret was out.”

 _Did you deduce his identity from his fine hindquarters?_ Jessamine still couldn’t believe that Sokolov had managed to identify her by her figure.

“I’ll never hear the end of that, will I,” Sokolov muttered, his grimace deepening. “No, he offered to model nude.”

Daud barked out a disbelieving laugh. “ _What?_ ”

“Quite. I told him that wouldn’t be necessary, but he was obsessed with the concept. I didn’t manage to dissuade him until he lit upon the idea of painting me while I painted him.”

“An aspiring artist. The nobility is full of them,” Daud said in a strained voice. He was obviously trying very hard not to laugh.

“That generalization is an insult to all the talentless amateur aristocrats with entirely too much time on their hands,” Sokolov snapped. “The monstrosity that he produced could never be considered art, no matter your opinion on the validity of the so-called abstract movement. It bore such little resemblance to me that had he not informed me that it was in my likeness, I would have been ignorant.”

Jessamine stared; the couch shook with Daud’s muffled laughter.

“That— That’s terrible,” Daud managed.

Jessamine rolled her eyes. _WHO IS HE?_

“Oh, Luca Abele,” Sokolov said carelessly. “Are you going to kill him too? You’d be doing the city - no, the Empire - a favour by depriving it of his so-called art.”

Before Jessamine could tell Sokolov exactly how ridiculous he was being, a commotion from the front lawn disturbed them.

“ _Aramis!_ ” The cry floated through the window, which Daud had left cracked open, followed by frantic pounding on the manor’s front door.

“Who got past Kirin’s ridiculous lock?” Daud muttered, stalking over to the window.

“I know we parted on poor terms, Aramis, but I must speak with you!” The voice was vaguely familiar, though Jessamine couldn’t place the speaker immediately.

“Someone let him in the house?” Daud sounded incensed.

“Where is he? I know he’s here, Jaime.” The man’s voice echoed down the hall, accompanied by heavy, rapid footsteps as he neared. Jaime’s softer, but no less frantic, voice followed, his precise words drowned out by repetitions of Stilton’s name.

“Ara—” The man stopped dead in the threshold, staring at the three of them in obvious confusion. Jaime hovered behind, wringing his hands, stricken. “Doctor Sokolov? Admiral— _Jess Kaldwin_?” His voice rose higher with each name, blood draining from his face in equal measure.

“It’s not what you think, milord,” Jaime said fretfully, but went ignored or unnoticed.

“By the Void, Aramis really is plotting treason,” Theodanis Abele said faintly.


	6. scion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **scion**  
>  _noun_  
>  1\. a descendant.

Stilton and Curnow arrived before things could escalate any further, the former calming his friend - and lover? Jessamine had heard the rumours, but hadn’t paid them much mind - and explaining everything.

“So you are searching for Lady Emilia,” Theodanis murmured. He was obviously still in shock, though some of the colour had returned to his cheeks. His fingers were white-knuckled around the delicate handle of a teacup that Jaime had procured for him. “Do you know where she is, Doctor Sokolov?”

Sokolov scoffed and shook his head. “No. Guerra and I are hardly bosom companions.”

Theodanis took a long sip of tea, the cup rattling against the saucer when he put it back down. “I believe I know where she is.”

Jessamine stiffened, her hand straying to her folding blade. It hadn’t escaped her notice that Theodanis was Luca’s father, but Corvo had always been of the opinion that the father was cut from a different cloth than his self-entitled, spoiled brats of sons.

Stilton stepped into Jessamine’s line of sight, frowning in the face of her glare.

“How long have you known?” Daud demanded.

“Just this morning,” Theodanis said. “Void, I can’t even say for certain that the girl I saw truly was Lady Emilia. But she had the Attano eyes.”

Jessamine eased her hand away from her blade to scrawl a hasty _where???_ on her pad of paper.

Theodanis dropped his gaze, his face twisting in something like regret. “Addermire.”

The _asylum_. Jessamine took a slow breath, trying to calm herself. Stilton and Theodanis were obviously close, and that - if nothing else - was reason not to attack the noble. Besides, he might have more information for her.

_How did it take you so long to notice her?_

“He doesn’t run Addermire any longer,” Stilton said, with a sharpness Jessamine hadn’t thought him capable of.

Theodanis cleared his throat, still not meeting her eyes. “Radanis had shown an interest in Addermire since he was a boy. He approached me after the Emperor’s murder and suggested that I step down as director of the Institute. I thought the responsibility would help him grow into the man I knew he could be.” He wrung his hands together, his expression tight and unhappy. “But I’d heard rumours of abuse and misconduct between the staff and the patients, so I thought to make a surprise visit this morning.”

“Take your time,” Stilton said gently, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Daud shifted impatiently beside her, but managed to restrain himself. Jessamine did the same, curling her hands into fists to curb the impulse to tell Theodanis to get on with it.

“The place was a ruin!” Theodanis burst out. “Six months, and Radanis had already— The guards and orderlies tried to stop me, but I was determined to see my son. A child intercepted me before I could reach his office. She claimed to be Emilia Attano, but she didn’t resemble the girl I remembered. Except for her eyes.” Theodanis closed his own, taking a ragged breath as he leaned into Stilton’s touch. “Radanis arrived at that point. He had the guards remove Lady Emilia and spun me a tale about her delusions, and I— I let him. But I couldn’t get the child out of my mind, and you were the only one I could come to.”

He tilted his head up, imploring. “I know we quarreled about Guerra, Aramis, but I see now that I was blinded by my love for my sons. I didn’t want to believe that the person they supported wholeheartedly was the villain you made her out to be but if she was truly behind Emperor Corvo’s murder— How could she not be? Radanis must be confining the princess for her; where else would he have found Lady Emilia?”

“Theo,” Aramis murmured tenderly, his hand caressing the length of Theodanis’ neck to cup his cheek, as if there weren’t four other people in the room with them. The action put to rest Jessamine’s speculation on the exact nature of their relationship, not that she had necessarily needed such a clarification. She couldn’t help watching them, however - indulging in the kind of casual intimacy she and Corvo had never had, too conscious of the rumours surrounding them already.

Sokolov turned to Jessamine and Daud, thoroughly unimpressed. “If the matter of Lady Emilia’s whereabouts is settled to your satisfaction, I would appreciate seeing Jindosh’s laboratory now. Subpar or downright useless as I imagine it will be.”

“Right,” Daud said quickly, rising. Jessamine followed; she needed to see Kirin to drop off the loot she’d gathered on her way through the Academy, and restock her supplies, before she left for Addemire to rescue Emilia from Radanis Abele.

The two lovers didn’t even notice their departure; a blank-faced Curnow joined them, though the back of his neck was red where it was visible above his collar.

He startled when Jessamine tapped him on the arm, and his look of confusion did not abate when she pulled out her mask and pretended to put it on.

“Where’s Callista,” Daud translated. When Jessamine and Curnow both looked askance at him - the pantomime had hardly been clear, but Jessamine had been too impatient to pull out her paper - Daud scowled deeply. “It was obvious. Or am I wrong?” he added, irritably, to Jessamine.

Jessamine shook her head.

Curnow made a considering noise. “She went to meet with a friend in the Order— The woman who sent me news of Callista’s imprisonment. Those marks carved into the High Oracle’s mask have been driving her to distraction, and she thought the woman might have some insight.”

Jessamine frowned; she doubted rescuing Callista a second time would be as straightforward as it had been the first time, though the irony of second-guessing the other woman’s ability for having just escaped torture and imprisonment was not lost to her.

“Your niece, Captain Curnow?” Sokolov asked.

“So you do know who I am,” Curnow said, his voice as dry as bone, as they reached the elevator.

Sokolov bristled. “I know your name, not your character. Forgive me for not trusting a member of the Grand Guard, bastion of incorruptible righteousness though it may be.”

The car arrived then, the rattling of the chains temporarily preventing any kind of reply. Silence fell as they piled into the elevator.

“I think the fact that Guerra dismissed him as one of her first acts as Regent would suggest Curnow was one of those rare, incorruptible men,” Daud remarked as they stepped out into the laboratory.

“Guerra dismissed everyone not of Serkonos. I was the only exception,” Sokolov added, sounding almost smug about it.

“If only because you’d driven the _true_ talent out of the Academy by then,” Kirin sneered.

Jessamine, Daud and Curnow exchanged long-suffering looks. Daud rolled his eyes and intervened before the argument could escalate into something even uglier.

“Both of you have yet to properly synthesize a cure, so why don’t you focus your considerable intellect on that problem before you come to blows.”

The look Jessamine traded with Curnow was disbelieving this time, in the lull following Daud’s words; as if the pair of ridiculous natural philosophers would take the suggestion - growled or not - as anything other than an incitement to further competition.

“And whoever finds the cure _first_ —”

“As if that is even in question, it will obviously be _me_ —”

“You handled that with the deftest hand I’ve seen in a while, Admiral,” Curnow said, somehow managing to keep a straight face— at least until Daud glared at him, at which point a strangled laugh escaped him.

“Daud! You spent a season or so in the Academy.”

Daud’s shoulders rose, a hunted expression crossing his face before he smoothed it into a passably stoic mask as he turned to face the pair down. “And no one ever lets me forget it.”

“I thought I remembered you skulking around at the back of the class,” Kirin said, oblivious to Daud’s rising ire. “But no matter. As the only other person remotely qualified, unfinished higher education aside, you’ll settle this matter now: which of our plague preventatives is currently superior, my remedy or Sokolov’s swill?”

“They know we have ears, don’t they?” Curnow muttered. Jessamine, distracted by her note, made a vague noise and shrugged.

“Uhh—” Daud began.

Jessamine rapped sharply on a nearby countertop and, when she had gotten their attention, held up her latest message: _WORK TOGETHER_.

For all their differences, the outraged looks Kirin and Sokolov sent her were remarkably similar. Not that Jessamine was stupid enough to make that comparison within earshot of either of them.

“Very well,” Sokolov said grudgingly. His resemblance to a younger Emilia condescending to finish her vegetables at dinnertime was striking, but the sulking wasn’t half as cute as it had been on Emilia.

 _I need to trade and restock,_ Jessamine added to Kirin.

“Ah, you mean that junk Jaime and Thomas brought down wasn’t yours?”

“Junk—?!” Sokolov growled.

Jessamine gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to scream in frustration, or at least attempt to shake some _sense_ into them.

* * *

Thomas went back out to the skiff with her, directing her to a side passage that emerged further down the waterway, out of sight of the boatman who had brought Theodanis to Batista.

 _Thank you for doing this, Thomas,_ Jessamine wrote as they passed beneath a street.

Thomas blinked at her. “Of course, Lady Jess.”

_You must have other duties as well._

“Scavenging for supplies or passing messages for the Admiral.” Thomas shrugged. “This is safer. Though the waiting can be just as nerve-wracking,” he added, pensive.

 _I appreciate it,_ Jessamine repeated, and the young man smiled in reply.

He fell silent as the boat passed into the open air, speaking up only when they reached the docks of Campo Seta. “Radanis installed a watchtower to discourage unwelcome visitors around the island, so you’ll need to disable it if you want me to pick you up at Addermire. And Lady Jess— The back streets and alleys are Howler territory. Be wary.”

Jessamine nodded and climbed out of the boat, waving as Thomas softly wished her good luck.

* * *

The docks, usually bustling even in the rain, were almost entirely deserted. A few workers were still about, but they kept their heads down and didn’t give Jessamine and her eerie mask a second glance. Many of the buildings were in poor repair, sporting broken windows and boarded-up openings if not quarantined and sealed shut with those red clamps. As Jessamine hurried towards the mouth of a nearby alley, she pulled out the Heart; it beat wildly in the cage of her fingers, becoming even more frantic as she aimed it above her.

The tenement building was quarantined, marked as infected by the garish red symbol painted beside the door, but the balcony on the top floor wasn’t clamped shut. Bloodflies drifted beneath the awning, numerous enough that there had to be a corpse riddled with their larvae, if not a nest itself, in the suite within. From this angle, all she could see was the dark opening into the apartment; no telling what was inside. It could just be a bone charm, and she had more than enough of those already, most of them with effects that had little benefit for her. But if it was a rune - or a shrine, though she wasn’t thrilled at the thought of seeing the Outsider - then she should take it. Expanding her arsenal of powers would only make the tasks ahead of her easier.

Thus decided, Jessamine scaled the exposed vents and pipes until she was within range of the balcony - a task made more difficult by the raining still soaking the city - then blinked onto the railing.

The apartment was infested with bloodflies, naturally. Fortunately, she’d had some coin left over earlier to stock up on incendiary bolts, supplementing the handful that she’d found on her previous missions. While she would normally have destroyed only those nests she couldn’t avoid, the fact that the deadly pests also spread the plague made her feel obligated to get rid of all of them.

A couple of bottles of Orbon Rum helped speed things along - she’d douse nearby nests in the alcohol and set them all alight with a single incendiary bolt - and soon the apartment had only a few confused bloodflies buzzing around. She slashed those out of the air with her blade, and set to work finding the bone artifact the Heart had pointed out to her.

Aside from a few coins, several pieces of blood amber, the only thing she could find was a cracked bone charm lying in the remains of one of the nests. It gave off a strange, otherworldly sort of music, the same as every other rune or charm she’d come across, but something about this particular tune set her teeth on edge. As she turned it over in her hands, trying to discern what sort of benefit it would bestow upon her, she realized that it also had a cost for using it.

Jessamine frowned at it. What was the point of strengthening one aspect of her abilities if she weakened another? She tossed it away, disgruntled, and pulled out the Heart. It beat faster as she aimed it below her, the pane of glass lighting up from within.

“How many dead?” the Heart whispered. “Too many. Misery and death lurk in every corner.”

She stroked her thumb over the pane of glass. Whether the spirit within was conscious enough to feel such a touch, she didn’t know, but on the off-chance that it could feel it? She wanted to give it what comfort she could. Hopefully it knew why she was here, and who she was going to rescue.

The door to the hallway was latched, but Jessamine had no trouble opening it. A tripwire was set along the bottom of the doorway, attached to a trap in the corner across the hall. She stepped carefully over the wire and disarmed the box, glad for another incendiary bolt; there would always be more bloodflies to use them on, especially with all the corpses of plague victims around.

There was another trap at the bottom of the stairs, which she disarmed as well. The Heart’s insistent beating told her she was close. There was a single apartment on this floor, the same as the one above. Even through the closed front door, she could hear the buzzing within, heralding more nests. Colour shifted as she called on her dark vision, shapes and shadows twisting strangely. A number of objects lit up through the wall: some ammunition, a rune, a vial of elixir or remedy - and a single corpse, slumped in a corner.

Jessamine checked her crossbow, then entered the suite.

Getting rid of bloodfly nests was dangerous but not particularly unpredictable work. The deadly pests kept to their own nests; so long as one kept their distance and quickly disposed of the nest from afar, there was little risk involved. The buzzing of the agitated bloodflies and the soft sound of the nests going up in flames filled her ears as she went to work.

“She had a family, but they were lost to the plague. Her thoughts are consumed by those she tends, now,” the Heart whispered, unbidden.

Jessamine froze, glancing down at the pocket where she tucked the Heart when she wasn’t using it. In that moment, she heard the telltale creak of the floorboards behind her. She turned swiftly, pulling out her folding blade, and barely managed to fend off the pale, obviously sick woman sneaking up on her.

The woman’s face was pale, but there was a greyish tinge to her skin that the Weepers Jessamine had come across lacked. There was no blood on her face either, though she moved with the same unsteady, lumbering gait as the plague carriers. Reports of people afflicted with bloodfly fever succumbing to the strange impulse to tend the nests of the very creatures who’d infected them in the first place had crossed Corvo’s desk, but there had been enough difficulties recruiting and compensating extermination crews that the infrequent issue had been overlooked or dismissed as exaggerated.

Jessamine didn’t have any trouble believing the exterminators’ reports now.

“You’ve upset them! Now I have to get rid of you,” the woman hissed, lunging forward with a speed her shambling had belied. Jessamine lashed out in return, but quickly jerked her blade back when the woman didn’t even attempt to dodge it, narrowly avoiding taking off an arm. There was a loud buzzing at her back - the nest Jessamine had intended to exterminate next - and there really wasn’t much room in the corridor to maneuver. The crazed woman’s relentless attacks would push her within range of the bloodflies soon enough, if she didn’t do something, but there was no time to switch the incendiary bolts for a sleep dart.

The world bled grey as Jessamine slowed time. The woman was still coming at her, but Jessamine had the breathing room to duck beneath her outstretched arms and further down the hall, fumbling for a sleep dart. Time resumed its natural course just as the woman turned; Jessamine shot her in the chest with the tranquilizer as she made another lunge.

The woman dropped.

Jessamine scanned the apartment with dark vision again, ignoring the headache forming between her temples, but no other threats were apparent. The corpse was gone - the woman must have been asleep, and Jessamine had mistaken her for dead. She blinked rapidly, dispelling the power, and slumped against the wall. As she caught her breath, she pushed her mask halfway off so she could down one of Kirin’s remedies. The headache eased almost immediately, and Jessamine loaded her crossbow with more incendiary bolts.

She made short work of the rest of the nests. The last room was free of the hives, the buzzing of the bloodflies replaced by the curious hissing of a rune floating at a shrine. Jessamine wasn’t certain what to expect when she picked it up; the Outsider hadn’t appeared at the shrine back at the Academy, after all. But as soon as her fingers touched the old bone, darkness bloomed above the altar.

“You’ve been busy, Jessamine,” the Outsider said without preamble, black eyes glittering. “I’d apologize for not appearing at the last shrine, but I don’t think you were disappointed.” He smirked, leaning forward slightly. “That’s one of things that intrigues me about you. Countless people have crouched at my shrines across the ages. The woman you dealt with earlier erected this shrine in the vain hope that I would resurrect her loved ones, and Sokolov performs profane rituals because he wants to unlock the mysteries of the Void - as if those aren’t some of the most trite reasons to beg for my favour. Yet you could care less for my interest.”

Jessamine frowned. The Outsider’s words weren’t exactly untrue, but she was grateful for the advantages the mark’s powers afforded her, at the very least. It would likely become an inconvenience once Emilia was back on the throne, but Jessamine would deal with that problem when she came to it.

“Emilia awaits you at Addermire, held captive by a jealous nobleman. You murdered the High Oracle without remorse, but she had to go, didn’t she? I imagine it will be a similar story with Radanis Abele - with the same abrupt ending. An ignominious end for an ignominious man; fitting, in a way. Or perhaps you’ll find another way? I’ll be watching intently, Jessamine.”

The Outsider disappeared the way he’d arrived, leaving Jessamine alone in the apartment. As before, the Outsider’s words were more goading than encouraging, but he had confirmed something important: Emilia _was_ the girl that Theodanis had seen, a doubt that had niggled at the back of her mind since she’d set out.

* * *

Jessamine made it to Addermire Station without further incident, bypassing several Wall of Light checkpoints and picking up more valuables and bone artifacts along the way, but the station itself was closed. When she broke in, she found a rail carriage on the tracks, but when she tried the switch, it didn’t move. There was no power running to the station, and the whale oil tanks receptacles only powered the Walls of Light at the entrance, not the carriages.

It was tempting to cross over to Addermire using the rails, which weren’t electrified at the moment, but some part of her balked at the thought. There were no signs suggesting that the rails were out of service, which meant the power could be restored at any moment. The odds of her sneaking along the rails - slowly, to avoid plummeting into the bay - without someone noticing before she reached Addermire were slim indeed.

Jessamine stalked back out of the station, furious. To have Emily so close to her grasp, and yet out of reach, was infuriating.

“Psst! Hey, over here,” someone hissed from an alley as she passed.

Jessamine had them up against the wall, her blade at their throat, before she’d quite made the conscious decision to move. But she relaxed when she saw it wasn’t a guard, and stepped back immediately, folding the blade and raising her hands.

“Shit, you’re fast!” The man rubbed his throat, grimacing. His hands were covered in tattoos, and the edges of more ink were visible above his collar. The blade at his side suggested he was a gang member, but he didn’t seem offended by her rough treatment. “Damn. Boss wants to talk to you, if you’ve got the time. Said he’d make it worth your while.”

 _Boss?_ Jessamine scribbled quickly.

The man stared at the message blankly for several seconds. “I can’t read.”

Jessamine scowled, but it was hardly the man’s fault that he was illiterate, any more than she could help her mutism. Perhaps if she’d agreed to Guerra’s demands, it wouldn’t have come to this; but she’d be dead if she had.

“You, uh, you coming or—?”

Jessamine gestured for him to go first. The man shrugged and led her deeper into the alley. They cut through a tenement building and emerged on another street - this one lacking any guard presence - before ducking down another dark alley and into the basement of a boarded up storefront.

At first glance, the basement was as deserted as the exterior would suggest. There were a few boards abandoned against one wall, and various other forgotten debris, but the man strode forward confidently. He nudged the boards aside to reveal a crude opening that had been dug out of the brick. After pointing out the tripwire set up along the bottom, he set out along the tunnel.

Jessamine hesitated at the entrance. The earthen passage reminded her of her escape from Sofocaverno - except it had obviously been crudely dug, rather than excavated by miners directed by engineers. But it was hardly as deep underground, and she couldn’t afford this ridiculous weakness, so Jessamine took a fortifying breath, stepped carefully over the tripwire, and followed the man into the tunnel.

They bypassed several more traps in the span of a few minutes, and emerged in another basement, this one obviously used. It served as a warehouse for the gang - whichever of Karnaca’s criminal organization’s this was - with long shelves set up at even intervals. There were weapons and ammunition on some of them, but other shelves held food - perishable and preserved - and other, less lethal essentials.

A sturdy woman guarded the entrance on this side, but she allowed them past with a nod, not batting so much as an eyelash when Jessamine emerged behind the man.

The stairs led up to a modest courtyard enclosed on all sides by what appeared to be tenement buildings. A row of training dummies lined the far wall, crude targets painted on their cloth bodies and bucket heads. The brick was pocked and scorched with the evidence of past target practice, but the dummies were just as worn as the wall behind them. The ground was well-trodden, patches of brownish grass sprouting at the edges, but it was deserted now.

“This way. Boss should be waiting in his office,” the man grunted, making for a door to the side. He led her up three stories, past several numbered doors - so the buildings had served as apartments at some point, though whether that was still their function remained to be seen - then stopped in front of the door to the only suite.

Jessamine cocked her head, but the man only looked at her expectantly. She rolled her eyes but knocked on the door, wary of triggering any traps this gang was so obviously fond of.

“Enter!” a smooth voice commanded.

Jessamine did, her left hand loose at her side in case she had to use the mark or her crossbow.

A clean-shaven man sat at a cluttered desk, his decidedly calculating expression disappearing as he smiled at her. “Ah, the hero of the hour!” He rose, rounding the desk with his hand outstretched. Jessamine shook it warily; his mouth might have been smiling, but his eyes were as coolly analytical as before.

“Didn’t think you’d show up again so soon,” came a familiar drawl from the side. Jessamine stiffened, shifting into a wary stance as she turned. The scruffy woman from earlier - the one who’d picked the lock in Sokolov’s private lab - was leaning against the wall in the corner, arms crossed over her chest.

“That’s hardly the way to greet your saviour, Bridget,” the man scolded, but there was little heat in his voice.

“Says the man who didn’t even introduce himself yet,” Bridget shot back easily, pushing off from the wall and sauntering over to his side.

“Of course.” The man turned that bland smile on her again. “Teague Martin.”

Jessamine stiffened in spite of herself. Martin was the man who’d been well on the way to uniting Karnaca’s gangs under the banner of the Howlers, before the plague started spreading through the city. Guerra, Corvo and Curnow had often spoken of him in person or in reports passed to Corvo’s desk. There were descriptions of his face, but none of the Grand Guard had ever managed to see him and speak of it - or if they had, they weren’t telling.

He was more affable than Jessamine would have expected. No obvious scars or injuries to indicate that he was anything other than a law-abiding citizen with a relatively risk-free job. The look in his pale eyes was unusually keen, which had struck her from the moment she entered the room, but it only made sense that the man who’d consolidated control over several districts of Karnaca would be so shrewd.

“I’ll confess, I’m usually the one wearing a mask,” Martin added lightly, “but I think I can guess your identity in any case.” He took a step back when she took one forward, wary but not so much so that he went for the sword at his hip, or his holstered pistol. He made a soft sound of recognition when she pulled out her paper and pencil.

 _What do you want?_ Her hand was messier than usual, a casualty of Jessamine keeping an eye on Bridget and Martin as she wrote.

“Me?” Martin made a show of blinking in confusion. “Why, I wanted to show my gratitude for your actions earlier. When Bridget didn’t show up this morning, we all assumed she was as good as dead.”

Bridget scowled. “I’m sure she doesn’t want to hear about _that_.”

Jessamine was slightly curious about how a Howler as high-ranking as Bridget seemed to be had ended up in Sokolov’s cages, but the other woman was correct; Jessamine’s need to find and rescue Emilia overrode everything else. _And what does your “gratitude” entail, Martin?_

Martin smiled thinly - it seemed moderately more sincere this time, or at least less for show - and shrugged. “You want to take the carriage to Addermire, don’t you?”

Jessamine nodded cautiously.

“I’ll have my people get the power going.” He gestured to Bridget, who rolled her eyes and let herself out, sparing Jessamine a wave as she sauntered past. “The Grand Guard thinks they’re the only ones who know how to operate the generators, but I suppose this is as good an excuse as any for them to learn otherwise.”

Jessamine relaxed slightly as relief suffused her. _Thank you._

Martin waved a hand dismissively. “I wonder if you would permit me to ask another question - you’re free to leave, if you don’t want to answer.” At her wary nod, he continued, “I can only think of one target worthy of an assassin such as yourself. Are you going to kill Radanis Abele?”

There was no harm in telling him; it wasn’t as if she’d have to pass through his territory with Emilia afterward. _Yes._

“I’ve been thinking of taking care of him myself.” Martin’s eyes glittered coldly, all pretense of joviality gone. “What he’s done to Addermire is inexcusable. The _Lady Regent_ has been using the place as an alternative to Sofocaverno, and the people Addermire should be helping are left to fend for themselves. Catching him on his way from the island wouldn’t be _easy_ , but the squad assigned to him is cocky. We could take them all.”

_If you’re planning to kill him, why not just let me do it?_

Martin bared his teeth. “Who said anything about killing him? Shave his head, cut out his tongue— the mine bosses don’t care who goes down, so long as the silver comes up.”

That was almost better than killing him outright. It was— tempting. _What do you want in exchange?_

“Another of my people was taken to Addermire. Don’t know if he’s alive or not. He had valuable information on him. Get him back to me, or bring me his book, and I’ll take care of Radanis for you.”

 _I’ll try to find him._ Jessamine wasn’t about to make promises to such a dangerous criminal, any more than she would refuse him outright. Something about Martin unnerved her; he was almost too cunning.

“That’s all I can ask,” Martin said lightly, his anger tucked away as if it had never been there at all.

As if on cue, Bridget let herself back into the office. “What’d I miss?” she asked, seemingly oblivious to the charged atmosphere.

“Nothing important.” Martin waved a hand dismissively. “Our guest was just on her way out. Lead her back to the station, will you?”

Bridget raised her eyebrows, but all she said was, “Sure thing, boss. This way, milady.”

* * *

Once they reached the main street in front of Addermire Station, Bridget faded back into the alley, gruffly wishing Jessamine luck and pressing a couple of vials of Sokolov’s elixir into her hands before disappearing the way she’d come.

Jessamine stared in bemusement at the unexpected gift, but pocketed the elixirs all the same. Even if she had no need of them while she was on Addermire, the Loyalists would find a need for them. It wasn’t easy to smuggle supplies in and out of the abandoned district, after all.

As promised, the power to the station was restored. The rails hummed faintly, audible if one paused to listen; every so often, a bright spark of electricity traveled down the line. Jessamine climbed into the carriage and set it into motion. It glided smoothly along the rails that were suspended above the bay, affording her a view that, in other circumstances, would probably have been beautiful.

Now, it was mostly depressing. There weren’t many other vessels in the bay - most of them were anchored, hemmed in by a line of ships maintaining a blockade around the plague-ravaged capital. The dark clouds and omnipresent rain limited her visibility, but Jessamine knew they were there. She’d brought the letters declaring the other Isles’ intent to blockade Karnaca to Corvo upon her return, and Daud had told her that Guerra had been unsuccessful at breaking the restriction.

He’d been viciously satisfied about it too; the Admiral that Guerra had appointed in Daud’s stead was little more than a puppet, and the Navy had no love for him. Those stationed in Karnaca paid him lip service, but the officers and enlisted men beyond the city gave no pretense of following the replacement’s orders. The Navy’s loyalty to Daud ran deeply.

When the carriage halted at the end of the line, the station on Addermire itself was deserted and its grounds sparsely patrolled by obviously bored guards. And why wouldn’t they be bored? The watchtower kept any unauthorized vessels at bay and the rail carriage was only powered when Radanis or other important personages came to the island. As far as the guards were concerned, the greatest risk was an escaped patient.

Their inattention made it easy for Jessamine to sneak up on them, hooking an arm around their necks to choke them out or employing the edge of her blade according to the secrets the Heart whispered. Add in the advantage of the powers granted to her by the mark, and it was a simple matter to take them out. Her folding blade was soaked with blood before she was finished clearing out the ground floor. When a janitor saw her slitting a guard’s throat, no one came to see why he was shouting; the Heart told her that most of the guards were corrupt and lazy, and nothing Jessamine had seen or heard so far had shown her otherwise.

She stowed the janitor’s unconscious form in a closet, away from her stash of dead bodies. The Heart had said he tried to help those that he could, and he didn’t deserve to wake up on a pile of dead guards.

As with most of the prominent locales around Karnaca, Jessamine had visited Addemire at Corvo’s side once or twice, but the tour around the facility had been brief. Still, the halls had been clean and well-lit, and likely had been for the duration of Theodanis’ tenure as director, if his reaction earlier was anything to go by. Now, the lights flickered eerily, if they weren’t burnt out entirely, and garbage and dust had accumulated on the edges of the corridors and forgotten corners.

A ruin, as Theodanis had claimed.

There had been maps post at intervals throughout the asylum the last time Jessamine had been here, but the display cases were empty aside from tattered edges that offered no means of orientation. Jessamine scowled and headed for the next floor. The wards were above, if she recalled correctly, not that she and Corvo had actually visited them.

The second floor was as useless as the first. There was no sign of Emilia, and plenty of signs that the laboratory that took up the majority of this storey was being used for unsavoury experiments. Jessamine was tempted to kill every guard she came across without even consulting the Heart; the vast majority of them deserved it, in any case. But she restrained herself - if she killed even the undeserving, who would be left when Emilia regained the throne? The Navy had other duties, and somehow Jessamine doubted Curnow would approve of her killing all of them.

If she found the doctor that served the asylum, they wouldn’t even be receiving the benefit of the doubt. Jessamine was no natural philosopher, but the blood staining the examination room couldn’t possibly have been justified; likewise, the strange machine humming with charge that was hooked up to the chair in that room had only increased her suspicions.

A lock stymied her on the third floor, the metal doors too sturdy for her to break down. Besides, if she put her ear to the keyhole, she could hear the heavy tread of people walking around within. She sighed and looked at the note tacked up next to the door.

_Since none of you idiots can keep a damn child confined, I’ll be locking the assigned patrol in and keeping the key for myself! If, for some reason, you need access, come to my office. If I’m not too busy, I’ll let you in. —Radanis Abele_

Emilia was definitely being held behind this door. Jessamine clenched her hands into fists, glaring at the pretentious swoops of Radanis’ signature. It was a poor stand-in for the man himself, so she headed for the next floor swiftly. Theodanis had had his office on the top floor, she remembered that much— she doubted Radanis would have moved it, but who could guess at what went through his head?

There was a single officer at the administrative desk beyond the director’s office, crossed legs propped on the desk as he idly snacked on some grapes. With his head tilted back, staring at nothing, he didn’t notice Jessamine creeping up the stairs.

“He considers sneaking into the women’s ward. No one thinks anything of a few screams. Soon, perhaps,” the Heart whispered, its breathy tone tinged with the same disgust that roiled in the pit of Jessamine’s stomach.

She had no qualms about slitting his throat and shoving the body under the desk. The guards at Addermire were _scum_ and Jessamine burned to think that any of them had watched over Emilia these past months.

That Radanis Abele had _let_ them.

Radanis was leaning over his desk in the office, hands planted on either side of an audiograph machine, his back to the unlocked door.

“Sonia promised me wealth and a title of my own, but it’s been six months.” Radanis’ slender shoulders shook with the force of his vitriol as he snarled into the mouthpiece of the audiograph. “What do I have to show for it? More lunatics to lock up in this dreadful spit of rock, which means more guards to pay to watch the fucking freaks! And now she wants to send over some more of her political enemies just because that Gristolian _bitch_ escaped Sofocaverno.”

Radanis reared back and Jessamine tensed, preparing to end things now if he turned, but all he did was slam his fist down on the desk.

“And my _dear_ father saw that ungrateful brat. I don’t think he believed me when I told him the girl was deranged. I should inform Sonia, but if I do, she’ll blame me! As if it’s my fault. _Luca_ was supposed to send word if he left, but that fucking layabout was probably high again. Squandering our inheritance on parties and other shit. Living the high life while I languish on this shithole island! That’s what I’ll tell Sonia. It’s Luca’s fault.”

Radanis snarled wordlessly, a sound of pure frustration.

“It’s really the fault of the Emperor’s damn bastard. Always trying to escape! Maybe I should let her. See how long she lasts on the streets!”

Jessamine had heard enough. Fury pounded in her ears, in time with the beating of the Heart in her hand. She’d intended to use it on Radanis, but was there any need to now? The man had poured his thoughts out so readily, vile enough that if there were worse secrets to be learned about him, Jessamine didn’t _want_ to know.

She kicked the door closed and locked it behind her. All the guards nearby were dead or unconscious, but she didn’t want to have to chase Radanis down.

“I told you incompetent wretches to leave me be—!” Radanis spun around, eyes narrowed in fury. They widened when he caught sight of her, but he mastered himself quickly. “Who are you? I suppose I’ll have to speak with the orderlies about checking the inmates for contraband. I can’t imagine where you found the materials for that hideous thing on your face.”

Jessamine pulled out her folding blade and took a slow step toward him, enjoying the way the derision on Radanis’ face swiftly gave way to fear.

“O-Outsider’s crooked— you’re the one who murdered the High Oracle— Wait. I can— I can give you information, coin, whatever you want!” He fumbled clumsily for the blade at his side, drawing it in time for Jessamine to knock it easily out of his trembling hand. “Stop— Guards—!”

The cry was cut short as Jessamine drove her blade between his ribs, the force of the blow pushing him back a step.

“I— deserved better—” Radanis wheezed, his last breath escaping on the final word as he went limp.

Jessamine drew out her blade, stepping aside to avoid the spray of blood. It wouldn’t do to appear before Emilia covered in blood, after all. She plucked a monogrammed handkerchief out of his pocket - Radanis had truly been roughing it here, in the nicest room in the entire dilapidated complex - and carefully cleaned the blade. That accomplished, she reached over and flicked off the audiograph, then rifled through the contents of his desk.

Several maps of the facilities, edges torn from where they’d been ripped from the walls, were stacked in one corner. That explained the empty frames. The children’s ward was marked clearly on the map, behind the locked door on the floor below, as she had suspected. She tucked several letters between Radanis and Guerra into her pocket - they could prove useful later - and a handful of other valuables. There wasn’t much to be had - only a few coins and a slim silver ingot.

Apparently really Radanis hadn’t received much in the way of inheritance, not that Jessamine felt any sympathy for him. He’d had a noble’s education, and any number of opportunities to better himself, and he’d chosen to side with the person who’d had Corvo murdered. She gazed down at his slack face, unable to feel anything other than disgust. A quick search of his corpse turned up a pack of expensive cigars from Cullero and the key to the children’s ward. She clenched the latter in her hand, the edges cutting into her fingers despite her gloves.

“Hey— Sir, are you—” A startled voice filtered through the office door. When Jessamine called up her dark vision, she saw a guard crouched behind the desk where she’d hidden the officer. Scowling, she tucked the key securely into a pouch and stalked out. The guard flinched back when she saw Jessamine, hand flying for her pistol. Jessamine shot her with a sleep dart and left her where she lay sprawled out on the floor, hidden from view by the desk.

The door leading to the terrace was open. Her cursory perusal of the map had marked the rooms beyond as the wards for men and women. Perhaps Martin’s man was in one of them. Jessamine’s first impulse was to find and free Emilia immediately, but it couldn’t hurt to have the Howler’s leader owe her a favour either.

There was a lone guard patrolling the terrace outside the wards, visible pacing leisurely toward the corner before her dark vision faded. Jessamine blinked up to the ventilation system spanning the exterior of the main building, out of sight as the woman rounded the corner.

“This guard asks for the night shifts for a reason. She had her committed, and enjoys tormenting her when no one else is around,” the Heart said softly.

Jessamine adjusted her grip on the blade and dropped down on top of the guard as she passed beneath the vent. The woman didn’t even know what hit her, crumpling under Jessamine’s weight as the folding blade pierced the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

The hallway separating the patients’ rooms on either side was deserted, but a wheelchair had been left outside an open door partway down. Jessamine could hear screams, muffled by the soundproof doors and walls, and a soft voice filtering through the open door.

“No, please,” the man begged. “Nurse Trimble, don’t—”

When Jessamine reached the open doorway, she found a middle-aged man in a long white coat bent over a man in a straitjacket, though one of the patient’s arms was loose. The nurse - Trimble - had a syringe filled with the same bright fluid as her sleep darts in one hand as he rolled the patient’s long sleeve back with the other.

“His mind lingers on the glory his future advancements could bring himself and society, blind to the suffering of the individuals he experiments on in the present. They are nothing but objects to him,” the Heart whispered disapprovingly when she aimed it at Trimble’s back. Jessamine wondered what it would say of Sokolov, deliberately infecting healthy people for the sake of curing the plague. Nothing good, most likely, but at least Sokolov was doing it for a good cause; she couldn’t begin to guess at Trimble’s motives, beyond fame, or what he even attempted to accomplish.

Jessamine waited just around the corner until Trimble had sedated the patient before slitting his throat. His blood sprayed garishly over the pale padded walls. She almost pitied whoever would have the unenviable task of cleaning the place up once she was gone, but it was already such a mess that surely a little blood wouldn’t make too much of a difference.

Martin’s man was strapped to the bed in the room a few doors down, a bleak expression on his face as he stared unseeing at the ceiling. He twitched when Jessamine tapped on the window set into the door, his eyes widening when he saw her. She put a finger over the mask’s leering grin, an echo of what she’d done earlier, and let herself into the room.

 _Martin sent me,_ she informed him, hoping he could read. If not, this rescue would become a lot more difficult.

“The boss?” the Howler rasped. “Shoulda known he wouldn’t abandon me here.”

Jessamine swiftly undid the restraints, stepping back as the Howler got to his feet gingerly. _I’ve taken out most of the guards. The carriage should still be at the station, you can take it back to Campo Seta._

“Thank you. I won’t forget this— whoever you are.” He rubbed briskly at his wrists, over the chafed skin visible beneath the cuffs of his sleeves.

_Tell Martin he owes me. Radanis is already taken care of._

“Sure. Whatever you want.” The Howler nodded briskly, hard enough that Jessamine was worried he’d unbalance himself.

_All right. Good luck._

“Same to you.” The Howler swayed when he tried to walk out of the room, but by the time he’d crossed the length of the hall and entered the main building, his steps were steadier. Jessamine waved when he stepped into the elevator, climbing down the stairs to reach the door to the children’s ward.

Three guards were patrolling the ward - or rather, its periphery. The space was two stories tall, the centre of the second floor open so the ward itself was visible from the catwalks lining the perimeter, affording the children no privacy.

Not that there were any. Jessamine hadn’t dared let herself look before she’d taken down all of the guards - murdering two of them and sparing the third - for fear that she’d be unable to keep herself from going to Emilia immediately. Now, cold dread washed through her. The row of beds that she recalled from the time the Outsider had drawn her into the Void was gone; the frames were heaped in one corner along with their mattresses, and there was a small pile of ash in the middle of the room.

“Who are you?”

Emilia’s voice floated up from the ward, and Jessamine’s heart froze for one long second before it picked up again, twice as fast as before. Emilia’s clothes - once white, but now faded a dingy off-white - had blended in with the mattresses, but Jessamine could see her now, crawling out of the mess of beds that she’d made in one corner.

Jessamine hurried down the stairs, heedless of the noise her frantic feet made against the steps. She fumbled at the door, somehow managing to get the lock open, and flung it wide.

“Who are you?” Emilia repeated, fear starting to creep into her voice. She was crouched warily just beyond the makeshift entry of the fort, her face thinner than Jessamine remembered. Her head had been shaved, or cut very close to the scalp - it was growing back in patchily, making her daughter look even more gaunt. “Stay away from me!”

The cry drew Jessamine up short. She tried to tell Emilia that it was _her_ , it was Jessamine, she was there to rescue her. But all that came from her throat was a mangled sound that Jessamine cut off as soon as she realized she was making it. She reached with clumsy fingers for the strap of her mask instead, dropping it carelessly to the floor and shoving off her hood.

Emilia’s eyes widened. “Jessamine!” She flew across the room into Jessamine’s arms, pressing her face into Jessamine’s hair. Jessamine held her close, ignoring the rasp of Emilia’s short hair against her cheek. She wanted to be angry about Emilia’s state - the girl was too light, her youthful slimness fading into something unhealthier - but the relief of having her here was keeping her fury at bay for the moment.

“Radanis— He told me you were _dead_ ,” Emilia wailed. “Just like Daddy—!”

Jessamine hummed soothingly, stroking Emilia’s back as she cried and trying not to focus on the way she could count each vertebra.

A few minutes later, Emilia pulled back, scrubbing at her eyes with the end of one sleeve. Jessamine cupped her cheek with her right hand, brushing away a stray tear.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Emilia asked. She looked Jessamine up and down, a frown starting to pull at her features. “And what are you wearing? That’s not the Royal Protector coat.” She gasped when Jessamine pulled out her pad of paper, the frown deepening.

 _I can’t speak._ A euphemism, but Jessamine didn’t want to tell Emilia that the torturer had cut out her tongue on Guerra’s orders. _A group of people helped me escape Sofocaverno. They gave me the coat. I’ll take you back to their base now._

Emilia’s lips moved silently as she sounded out the prison’s name. “Oh. All right.” She still looked troubled, but bent to pick up the gruesome mask. After Jessamine had pulled it back on, Emilia followed her without complaint, her left hand gripped tightly in Jessamine’s right. She kept her crossbow in her left, loaded with sleep darts; she wasn’t about to kill in front of Emilia if she could help it.

* * *

The rain had stopped by the time they emerged on the back terrace, but the dark clouds still obscured the sun. It must’ve been early evening, though the city was as dreary as before, making it impossible to guess at the hour.

Jessamine left Emilia’s side only to make quick work of the guards and the watchtower, returning as swiftly as she could to lead Emilia down to the dock to wait for Thomas.

Emilia trotted back and forth along the dock, looking happier than she had earlier as Jessamine leaned against a post and tried not look as exhausted as she felt. “I escaped _three_ times, Jessamine. I got all the way to the rail station once,” Emilia revealed proudly. “But the carriage wasn’t there, and the guards found me eventually. Radanis was so red when he yelled at me, I thought his head might explode.” Her smirk then was a vicious thing, more in line with Jessamine’s own expressions - when she had the freedom to show emotion - than Corvo’s gentle smiles.

Jessamine smiled in spite of herself. It was a ghastly story, but she was relieved to see that Emilia’s spirit hadn’t been broken by her confinement at Addermire. Part of her regretted killing Radanis so quickly - he’d deserved to _suffer_ for what he’d put Emilia through; perhaps Martin’s alternative would have been a more fitting punishment. But it was done now, and Emilia was with her.

There were still more obstacles ahead of them - Luca, and Guerra, and the monumental task of helping Emilia hold the throne - but for the moment, Jessamine allowed herself to bask in her daughter’s presence and catch her breath.


	7. detente

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **detente**  
>  _noun_  
>  1\. a relaxing of tension, especially between nations, as by negotiations or agreements.

Emilia’s grip tightened around Jessamine’s hand as they stepped through the gate, her head swiveling as she took in the front yard of Stilton’s manor. Thomas had told her a bit about the Loyalists - their names, what positions they had held before this mess - but as they’d neared Batista, Emilia had gotten quieter and quieter, culminating in the uncharacteristically silent girl at Jessamine’s side now.

Jessamine squeezed her hand, smiling close-mouthed down at her daughter, and led her into the house.

Cecelia was sweeping the foyer. She twitched in surprised, eyes wide, when they entered, and fumbled with her broom for a moment before dipping into a low bow that dislodged her cap from her hair. “Your Highness,” she murmured, sounding mortified as she snatched her cap back up.

Emilia had tensed when she saw the young woman, not that Cecelia would have noticed. Now, she let go of Jessamine’s hand and stepped closer. “Hello. I like your hat.”

Cecelia’s gaze lingered on Emilia’s cross-cropped hair. “Thank you,” she stammered, averting her eyes after a moment. “Do you want it? I have a spare. Oh! I suppose I should get you that one, it’s clean and this one is all dusty—” She took a step down the hall, deeper into the manor, then paused, glancing back at them, her cap clutched tightly in both hands.

“This one is fine,” Emilia said kindly. Cecelia held the slightly-crushed cap out mutely; Emilia shook it back into shape and put it on. “How does it look?” She grinned at Jessamine, a pale shade of the mischievous smirk she used to wear whenever she teased the servants at the Palace.

Jessamine smiled back. _You look wonderful._

“It suits you,” Cecelia agreed quietly.

Emilia beamed. “Thank you, um—”

“Cecelia, Your Highness,” the woman supplied quickly.

“Cecelia. Thank you.” Emilia smiled at her again. “All right, I’m ready. Where are the Loyalists?”

Cecelia grimaced guiltily. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think. They’re eating dinner now. You must both be starving.”

As if on cue, Emilia’s stomach growled loudly. Jessamine hid a frown as Emilia laughed. “Dinner sounds lovely,” she said primly, and followed Cecelia down the hall towards the dining room.

* * *

Emilia tucked into the food immediately, eating quickly but with enough of the manners Corvo and various etiquette tutors had tried to instill in her that Jessamine didn’t chide her for it. The sight of Emilia - who had always been a bit of a finicky eater - wolfing down things Jessamine knew she’d have disdained in the past, was more troubling.

Her concern was mirrored on the faces of the Loyalists around the table, who had introduced themselves briefly before insisting that Emilia start eating. No one had commented negatively on the cap she’d appropriated from Cecelia either - Callista had smiled and complimented her, and none of the others had said a word about it.

A heavy silence fell over the room, broken only by the clinking of cutlery or polite requests to pass this or that dish. Theodanis, ensconced on one side of the table with Stilton, kept glancing between Jessamine and Emilia. He obviously wanted to speak, but was holding back for the moment.

“How come you’re not eating, Jessamine? Aren’t you hungry?” Emilia peered up at her, concern creasing her face.

Someone inhaled sharply, but Jessamine didn’t have the presence of mind to discern who it was. She fumbled for her pen, mind racing. She wasn’t going to _lie_ , but it seemed gruesome to tell Emilia at the dinner table. And she definitely didn’t want to have this conversation in front of the Loyalists.

Emilia’s mouth tightened, something like fear flickering in her eyes. “What is it?” she asked, her voice rising. “Jessamine—”

Daud cleared his throat. “Lady Jess’ tongue was cut out, Your Highness.”

Jessamine saw Callista pinching the bridge of her nose, a pained expression on her face, when she turned to glare at Daud. Some part of her was glad that it was out in the open, but the rest of her was angry that Daud had handled the matter so indelicately.

“What,” Emilia breathed, and Jessamine’s attention snapped back to her. “But—” Her eyes were wet, her face crumpling.

“Handled deftly as always, Admiral,” Jessamine distantly heard Curnow mutter.

 _I’ll eat later,_ Jessamine told Emilia. _I don’t like to eat in front of people._

“Then we can go to a different room,” Emilia declared. “This manor looked big. Not as big as the Palace, but there aren’t as many people—”

_It’s all right._

“It’s _not_ ,” Emilia whispered hotly, her hands clenched into fists. She had moved from distress to anger now. “Who did it? Soni— Guerra?” she amended swiftly, her eyes flashing.

 _She ordered it. The—_ Jessamine faltered, pen poised over paper. She didn’t want Emilia to know what she’d been through over the past six months.

“The torturer did it. Didn’t he?” Emilia’s voice was flat now, but her eyes still burned with anger. Jessamine nodded, unable to deny it. “Radanis told me you were being tortured but I— I didn’t want to believe it.” Emilia whispered the last few words, dropping her gaze guiltily. As if she was in any way at fault for what had happened. The brim of her cap prevented Jessamine from seeing her expression, but she could still hear the shuddering breath Emilia took.

Theodanis made a sound - of pain, or perhaps denial - and Emilia turned her attention to him. “You’re his father, aren’t you? Duke Abele.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Theodanis said hoarsely.

“Jessamine said you were the one who told her where I was being held.”

“That— that’s right.”

“So you didn’t know Radanis was hiding me until I found you this morning.”

Theodanis nodded jerkily. “Had I known, I would have done something.”

Jessamine wondered about that, but going against one’s own family would probably have been difficult for him. Radanis had seemed to have few qualms about it, but the differences between father and son were obvious. On that note—

 _I killed Radanis._ Better to get it out of the way now.

Theodanis flinched, but he didn’t seem overly surprised. “I thought as much,” he muttered.

He reached for his glass of wine with a shaking hand, only managing to knock it over. Stilton snatched it up quickly, dabbing at the spreading stain with his napkin as Theodanis cursed.

“It’s fine,” Stilton assured him. “It’ll be fine, Theo.”

“Did it hurt? When you killed Radanis,” Emilia clarified when Jessamine glanced at her in confusion, “did it hurt.”

“I have to go.” The legs of his chair squealed against the tile as Theodanis lurched to his feet. He looked sick. “I— Thank you for dinner, Aramis, but I must be going.” He hurried out before any of them could speak.

“Well, go after him,” Daud snapped. “You can’t let him talk, Stilton.”

Stilton glared, the look seemingly directed at Jessamine as well as Daud. “As the Admiral commands,” he retorted coldly, and hastened after his lover.

“Outsider’s eyes,” Curnow muttered into the silence, rubbing a hand over his mouth. He looked shaken, staring blankly at the table in front of him. He twitched when Callista coughed lightly, looking guilty. “Sorry,” he muttered ruefully, sharing a soft smile with his niece.

“Jessamine. Did it hurt.”

 _No. It was quick._ Jessamine didn’t add that she wished she’d dragged it out further, or handed Radanis over to Martin. Son of Theodanis or not, Radanis had deserved it. But seeing the Duke’s pain, and Emilia’s strange obsession with her jailer’s death, had unnerved Jessamine.

* * *

The Loyalists reconvened two days later. Long enough for Emilia to settle in, though not enough time to explore every nook and cranny of Stilton’s manor. Jessamine had discovered rooms - a whole wing, even - she hadn’t realized existed while she was playing hide and seek with Emilia the day before. It also left everyone time to cool off and think about the whirlwind of events with a bit more distance.

Stilton and Theodanis had returned from wherever they’d gone - the Abele manor, presumably - and were sharing the couch in the usual sitting room. The Grand Guard hadn’t shown up at the gate, so Stilton must have convinced Theodanis to keep quiet. Callista, having made little headway on the mystery of the High Oracle’s mask beyond discovering that the symbols were found most commonly in Gristol, had volunteered to tutor Emilia in the interim. Jessamine had left the two in an office that Jaime had assured them was seldom used. Curnow was in one of the armchairs, and Daud had taken up his customary brooding position near the window. The natural philosophers were holed up in Kirin’s laboratory, which was for the best; their arguments could be heard drifting up the elevator shaft if one happened to pass nearby, but it was better than having them bicker in the same room as everyone else.

Jessamine took the remaining armchair next to Curnow, nodding in return to the others’ greetings.

“I’ll come out with it then,” Daud said at length, his harsh voice cutting through the thick tension that had settled over the room. “Your next target is Luca Abele, Jess. In addition to being Guerra’s lover, he’s also her primary financier and the portion of votes he holds in Parliament are also key to her hold on Karnaca.”

“Luca’s holding a wake for Radanis this evening, at the estate,” Theodanis said. “A— masquerade.”

“A what,” Curnow said blankly, voicing Jessamine’s own thoughts.

“It’s the new fashion,” Stilton explained.

“The new—” Curnow began, indignant now.

“If it’s a masquerade, then no one will look twice at Jess’ mask,” Daud broke in impatiently, and Curnow subsided.

_Do I need an invitation to get in?_

Theodanis held it out to her wordlessly, his expression grim. When Jessamine tried to take it from him, however, his grip remained firm. “I— hope you will try to find some other alternative to killing my last child, Lady Jess,” he said, his eyes intent upon hers. “Luca has his faults, as did Radanis; this I know. But I believe Luca is simply being used by Guerra for coin.”

Jessamine released the invitation, conscious of the heavy gazes of the other Loyalists as she set her pencil to paper. _I’ll try._ And she would, but somehow she doubted Theodanis would find shaving and cutting out Luca’s tongue to be sent off to the mines an acceptable alternative. At any rate, she wasn’t even certain Martin would have the inclination or even the ability to give Luca the fate he’d promised for Radanis.

Theodanis closed his eyes. “That’s all I can ask.” This time, when she reached for the invitation, he let her have it.

* * *

The rail carriage station to Upper Aventa was guarded not by a watchtower, as Jessamine had come to expect, but by a pair of men on massive stilts armed with bows, of all things. She hadn’t seen the tallboys use the weapons yet, but she remembered that frozen scene in the Void. They were likely armed with incendiary bolts, and the sturdy armour they wore would make it difficult to shoot them with any kind of projectile.

A squad of regular guards patrolled the streets as well, though most of them were distracted by the event being held at the Abele Estate. Every time a carriage rattled along the rails overhead, into and out of the station, their envious muttering resumed; the posting at the wake was a much more desirable assignment than patrolling Lower Aventa on a cold night.

The tallboys were the real threats. Unbothered by the fortune of their fellows, they scanned the streets warily. Their height made it more difficult to sneak around along low rooftops or balconies, although like most of the guards their focus was mainly on the street level. With the level of security, the streets were deserted, meaning the second Jessamine stepped out of the shadows, someone was bound to spot her.

The carriage to Upper Aventa passed back and forth at regular intervals, ferrying guests to the Abele estate. Short of boarding it at the station, however, she couldn’t see any alternative means of getting onto it. Even if she managed to climb to a sufficiently high outcropping of some sort to blink into the carriage as it went past, the passengers would notice her sudden appearance in their midst. Unfortunately, all the other means of reaching the upper portion of the district had been closed as part of Guerra’s “bold measures” to deter the spread of the plague.

What would the inhabitants of Upper Aventa do if the rail line was out of commission for some reason? They’d be as good as trapped up there. Jessamine rolled her eyes at the thought, then shook her head to clear it. She needed to focus. Luca Abele wasn’t going to take himself out.

The alleys were not patrolled so vigorously. As Jessamine picked her way over a series of tripwires, visible in the darkened lane only due to her dark vision, she realized why. Whether the traps were the work of the Howlers or not, the risk of triggering them would be enough to balk the most reliable of the Grand Guard. The lazy bunch whining about their shitty assignment on the main street wouldn’t dare set foot here.

Sticking to the shadows, Jessamine crept down the alley beside the station. The main entrance was guarded by a crackling Wall of Light, and while she could rewire it, everyone in the area would be on alert after the first unwitting guard tried to go through it. There were no conveniently open windows that she could see, but she got lucky when she reached the end of the alley: an officer was leaning against the wall beside the back door, smoking leisurely.

“His daughter is sick with the plague,” the Heart murmured when she pointed it at the officer. “He buys extra elixir rations when he can afford it, and steals them from those he is meant to protect when he cannot.”

She hesitated, weighing his abuse of authority against his reason for doing so.

Jessamine made short work of him, stowing his unconscious body in a nearby dumpster after taking the key from his belt. Peeking through the keyhole revealed a backroom which was fortunately deserted. Jessamine unlocked the door and slipped inside, locking it again behind her. From there, it was easy to join the cluster of masked guests waiting for the carriage to take them to Upper Aventa.

There were plenty of complaints about the slow movement; the carriages that came into the station in Lower Aventa were larger - meant for more passengers, and furnished much less comfortably - while the carriage that went between the two sections of this district was smaller and more luxurious, which had caused the bottleneck of people here as more people arrived from the rest of Karnaca than departed for Upper Aventa.

Most of them were nobles; the expensive attire and outrageous masks gave them away. They were all clad in black or dark shades, perhaps in deference to the event they were to attend. Or maybe it was just the latest fashion and had nothing to do with playing at mourning in a dying city. That was definitely an option too.

“Oh! What a ghastly mask,” one of the nobles in front of Jessamine gasped, catching sight of her lurking at the back of the small crowd.

“Don’t you think it’s in poor taste? Luca’s brother was murdered by some miscreant wearing a similar mask,” another noble said.

Jessamine shrugged, unwilling to answer more comprehensively unless pressed to do so. Hopefully the novelty of her mask would smooth the way.

“No, it’s perfect,” the first speaker insisted. Her mask resembled a bald baby’s head, which was arguably more ghastly than Kirin’s skull mask. “And here’s the carriage. You _must_ come with us. Can you imagine how everyone will react when we arrive together?” She linked arms with Jessamine and had pulled her into the carriage before Jessamine had time to reply.

Well, arriving with this group would make it easier to get in the door, even if the presumption was irritating. Jessamine took a corner seat, making a conscious effort not to pull away as the woman pressed against her side. The group would’ve been a tight fit in the carriage even without Jessamine, but she would be getting to the Abele Estate sooner now, so she wasn’t about to complain.

“What were we discussing—? Oh, yes. Luca needs an heir now more than ever. Everyone knows _Theodanis_ won’t be having another,” one of the men remarked, drawing laughter from the others as the carriage rolled out of the station.

“Does he have his eye on anyone? He looks like a bit of a brute, but if he’s that thick everywhere—” Jessamine’s companion trailed off suggestively as the men groaned and the other woman in their party cackled.

“I’m sure that’s what his mistress thought, at any rate,” the first man said slyly.

“A mistress? You _must_ tell us who!”

Jessamine listened with half an ear, content to let them gossip as long as they didn’t expect some kind of verbal input from her. The carriage ride was relatively short, in any case; a blessing, because even only eavesdropping as much as their proximity forced her to, Jessamine had been becoming annoyed with their pettiness. Speculating whether the wake would devolve into an orgy, of all things. Of course Jessamine had heard the rumours surrounding the rapacious appetites of the Abele brothers - Luca in particular had a fondness for throwing lavish parties and, yes, orgies, though Radanis had certainly sounded as if he wished he could do so before Jessamine murdered him. Regardless, such base conjecture about a _wake_ should have been taboo even for nobles as dissolute as this lot, but apparently not.

The evening was a nice one; the pall of smoke that had settled over Karnaca after the weekly burning of plague victims in Clemente Landing had all but disappeared courtesy of the rain and the wind. The nobles weren’t inclined to hurry, gossiping with varying degrees of viciousness over the state of various homes they passed. One stately manor was boarded off from the rest, the gates chained shut and the front door clamped. No one was safe from the plague.

Jessamine’s gaze traveled over the exterior of the Abele Estate as they neared. It was two stories tall, with at least two balconies - one overlooking the gardens at the edge of the cliff, and the other on the opposite side, above an alley. The latter would have been a decent point of entry if she’d had to sneak in.

They parted way in the entrance hall, the nobles dispersing in various directions with the air of people who had been to the Abele estate several times before. Corvo had attended parties beyond the Palace only rarely, and Jessamine had remained glued to his side at every one; she hadn’t known of the depths those he should have been able to trust would be willing to sink to then, but distrust of the nobility in general had kept her wary.

Not wary enough; Corvo was dead, betrayed by the Spymaster he and Jessamine had thought trustworthy, and now she had to track Luca down in the midst of a manor larger than Stilton’s - which was labyrinthine in itself - without even knowing what he looked like. There would be some resemblance to Radanis, of course, but Luca would likely be wearing a mask so that added another layer of difficulty to her task.

Jessamine glanced around, trying to decide where to start. A Wall of Light cordoned off the main staircase, but the entirety of the main floor as well as the lawns outside were open to the public, as the guard checking invitations had helpfully informed them, and people were taking full advantage of that. A trio of guests were naked but for their masks, fucking enthusiastically on a couch in the sitting room just off the main hall.

Apparently the earlier speculation that the wake would devolve into an orgy had been sincere. Jessamine hadn’t thought she could experience this kind of disgusted horror any longer, but here she was. She grimaced and hurried past, hoping to find people more interested in gossiping than fucking. Or at least wearing more than a mask. The servants kept to themselves, averting their eyes and going about their duties with admirable professionalism; asking them was out of the question.

There was a veritable feast set out in the dining room, which she stumbled upon entirely by accident about ten minutes later. Most of the guards seemed to have congregated there, eating and chatting. One of them was even smoking an expensive Cullero cigar, apparently unconcerned with the chance of being caught. Apparently the guards in Lower Aventa had reason to be jealous. The guards’ lax attitudes would have been offensive, if Jessamine wasn’t planning on taking full advantage of it.

“Luca looked rather upset about Radanis’ death,” a passing noble remarked, sounding rather disinterested at the prospect.

“Well, his brother _was_ brutally murdered,” their companion returned flippantly. “Now, if Luca had been the one to die, and Radanis the survivor, this would be a proper orgy—”

“Marco! Have some tact,” the first noble said, but the delighted tone of their voice belied their words. “Lovely mask, dear,” they added, nodding to Jessamine as they strolled by.

Jessamine inclined her head, glad that the mask concealed the entirety of her face so she didn’t have to hide her disgusted expression. The noble’s bird mask only covered the upper portion of their face, the curved beak doing nothing to obscure the nasty smirk twisting their lips.

“How could you tell how Luca looked behind that mask, anyway?” Marco asked as they continued down the corridor.

“Well, his eyes were glistening with tears. How much more obvious can it get?”

“I thought that was because you mistook his fox mask for a puppy.”

“Hm. I suppose you’re right. He certainly headed for the upper floor quickly enough.” Their voices faded as they turned the corner.

That solved the mystery of what kind of mask Luca was wearing: a fox mask that could somehow be mistaken for a puppy. And he had last been seen making his way upstairs. Following him would be more difficult. The guards stationed at the entrance hall seemed to be the most attentive of the lot, one of them keeping watch at the foot of the stairs and the other making occasional rounds of the hall’s perimeter. The influx of guests seemed to have slowed for the moment, but while most of the guests were distracted with carnal pursuits, Jessamine didn’t want to risk one of the guards causing a fuss and drawing the attention of people from nearby rooms. Her mask ceased to hide her in plain sight if everyone realized she really was the masked assailant.

The lawns were less populated than the main floor. Jessamine strolled slowly along the meandering path, pretending to admire the elaborately cultivated flowerbeds and hedges while scanning the area. A few guards were on duty, but most of them were clustered together and not paying overly much attention to their surroundings. The guests enjoying the gardens weren’t overly interested in the flowers or anything other than the people they were with, which suited Jessamine fine.

Jessamine paused at the fence marking the edge of the lawn. If the gardens were beautiful, the view of Karnaca spread out below would have been even more so. She was struck once again by the swathes of darkened city, a sharp contrast to Upper Aventa, which seemed unaffected by the plague. But— that wasn’t true. One of the great manors had been cordoned off, that garish red plague marker painted on the elaborately carved front gate, when Jessamine had been making her way to the Abele estate.

The difference was that the people here could pretend they were untouchable, that the plague was a misfortune tormenting others but that would ultimately pass them by. But they couldn’t truly believe that. The fact that they were all but stranded up here, reachable only by a single carriage, should have been cause for alarm but instead all it seemed to give them was a false sense of security.

A particularly loud cry from behind some nearby bushes - really? - drew Jessamine from her contemplation. She pointedly did not look in that direction, having already received more eyefuls of naked asses than she really felt the need to enumerate, and turned back to the manor itself. On the second floor, a balcony overlooked the lawns and, beyond it, the sprawl of Karnaca. The view would probably be even better from up there, though that wasn’t the reason she wanted to reach it.

After a quick glance around the gardens, Jessamine drew on her mark and blinked. She landed lightly on the wide railing of the balcony and stepped down quickly, dropping into a crouch. She waited, counting the seconds, but when no cries of alarm met her ears decided no one had noticed her disappearing. Satisfied, she turned her attention to the glass doors at the far end of the balcony.

A sumptuously appointed bedroom lay beyond, the large four poster bed suggesting it was the master suite. Jessamine let herself inside - the doors were unlocked, a security issue that she made a note to report to Theodanis. An aspiring thief could simply break _through_ the glass, of course, but the commotion would likely alert someone of the intruder. It was better than allowing an assassin to slip in unnoticed, though it served her now.

A pair of Sokolov portraits hung above the fireplace at the foot of the bed. She recognized Stilton immediately; his posture was better than it was in reality, but it - like his expression - looked forced. As if he had been uncomfortable sitting for the portrait. Jessamine, who had made an art out of avoiding having Sokolov paint her likeness, could relate. The other portrait was of a woman who resembled Radanis; Theodanis’ wife, presumably. She had died a number of years ago, and Jessamine couldn’t recall her name.

THE SINGULAR FOCUS OF CALLAS ABELE, read the title plaque beneath the portrait of the Duchess.

Tempting as it was to steal the portraits and pocket some of the other valuables visible around the room, she doubted Theodanis would appreciate it. Besides, she’d already stolen several wallets and belt pouches off indiscreet and intoxicated nobles, so she wasn’t exactly short on coin at the moment.

A pair of guards patrolled the hallway beyond the master suite, but like their fellows downstairs, seemed more preoccupied with chatting than watching for intruders. But they stood facing one another, covering each other’s blind spots. There were no large light fixtures or exposed vents or some other convenient perch for her to sneak along, so Jessamine linked them together with a bit of magic and shot one with a sleep dart.

Like dominoes, the guard she’d shot slumped to the ground, and his partner followed a moment later, landing in a heap above him. Jessamine hid them in Theodanis’ bathtub - small pool might be a more accurate description, the bathroom rivaling the facilities at the Palace - and set out to find Luca.

* * *

Luca’s room had two portraits hanging above the mantel, the same as his father, both of them Sokolovs. One was Guerra’s official Spymaster portrait - SONIA GUERRA’S AXIS OF ASYMMETRY - and the other was of Luca himself. He bore a strong resemblance to Radanis, though where Radanis had been slender, Luca was sturdy - broad-shouldered, with a wide chest partially exposed by a few open buttons.

The sight brought to mind what Sokolov had told her about Luca offering to model nude, and then the noblewoman in the baby mask’s speculation about whether Luca was thick _everywhere_ —

Jessamine shuddered and left Luca’s portrait where it was, though she did cut Guerra’s out of the frame to trade with Kirin. Burning it was a tempting option, but the thought of her portrait in the hands of some unknown collector would probably bother Guerra more, and Jessamine was petty enough to preserve it for that reason.

An open envelope addressed to Luca lay on the nightstand. The hand was Guerra’s; Jessamine had seen it often enough on reports or other correspondence to Corvo. She picked it up, surprised at the weight - the master key to the Palace was inside, along with a brief letter from Guerra. She called Luca _my dear_ , but the words lacked any of the warmth Jessamine remembered from letters between herself and Corvo. Guerra’s excuse for not attending was laughably transparent as well— difficulties dealing with the Oracular Order? The Blind Sisters were in disarray as they attempted to cope with the murder of their leader. More evidence that Guerra was only using Luca for his family’s fortune.

Glass shattered against the wall; Jessamine flinched, looking around wildly. But the room was deserted aside from her; the sound must have come from the next room. If there were guards around - aside from the pair she’d dealt with a few minutes prior - none of them came to investigate the commotion. Jessamine tucked the key into her pocket - she knew the layout of the Palace like the back of her hand, and now this key would allow her to use whichever route she would need to reach Guerra.

“I don’t know what Radanis sees in these things,” a muffled voice came through the same wall that the shattering glass had. “I suppose I never will. Maybe if I listen to his collection of recordings, I’ll be able to understand.”

Luca’s voice was louder than it should have been. Jessamine frowned and examined the wall between Luca’s room and the next more carefully. His voice seemed to be coming through— there. She knelt beside the section of wood paneling that seemed to be the origin of the sound, feeling carefully around the edge—

With a soft _snick_ the entire panel slid to the side, revealing a small passage inside of the wall. The opening was large enough to accommodate Jessamine, although it was a tight fit. She stood up, waving a hand to clear the dust her steps had disturbed, glad that the mask blocked the worst of it. Childish drawings and scribbling covered the walls, signed by Luca and Radanis; a dusty toy lay forgotten in the corner. And in the same spot on the wall of Radanis’ room was a similar sliding panel with a fierce message scrawled more tidily than the rest of the writing:

KEEP OUT, LUCA. I MEAN IT!!!

There was no corresponding warning on Luca’s side. Jessamine triggered the mechanism from the inside, closing the sliding panel, just to be certain.

The second panel opened as smoothly as the first, though a large piece of furniture blocked part of the opening. Jessamine could probably squeeze through if she had to, but she remained in the passage for the moment, surveying Radanis’ room. It was as lavish as the rest of the manor, not that Jessamine had expected anything less; especially given Radanis’ obvious obsession with the extravagant, carefree lifestyle of a rich noble.

Luca was sprawled on the floor with his back against the desk. The snout of his fox-puppy mask rose above the crown of his head like a demented hat; he’d pushed it up to get at the bottle of alcohol in one fist. A collection of recording cards lay spread across the floor beside him, and the audiograph itself steadily was recording his disjointed thoughts on the desk behind him.

“Fucking— I can’t believe everyone thought this was just some excuse to hold an orgy,” Luca cursed, pausing to take a healthy swig from the bottle. “Ah— Radanis probably would’ve loved this. He was always down - or up, rather - for a good orgy, an’ he thought wakes an’ funerals were wastes of time.”

Jessamine couldn’t help a twinge of feeling for Luca; so he hadn’t intended for things to devolve like this. And he seemed genuinely upset about his brother’s death. Jessamine didn’t feel remorse for killing Radanis, but she did regret the pain it had caused Theodanis. She didn’t feel quite that breadth of emotion for Luca, but he didn’t seem malicious, merely— stupid or thoughtless; or incredibly naive. She almost pitied him.

“Luca Abele. He throws elaborate parties to draw the most exclusive people to him, yet he still feels alone. Afterward, the isolation only seems more pronounced,” the Heart murmured when she aimed it at him.

“He loved his brother. If only Luca could have found a way to show Radanis without inciting his envy.”

“He mistakes the contempt in Sonia’s eyes for his own affection requited.”

Those secrets confirmed what Jessamine had already suspected. While they hardly absolved Luca of his involvement with Guerra, Jessamine didn’t feel the same animosity towards him that she had for Radanis or Guerra.

Recording cards rattled together as Luca pawed through them, sniffling pathetically. The bottle was abandoned at his side, overturned and empty. “I should’ve— should’ve—” He shook his head and levered himself to his feet with one hand on the desk. His large frame swayed once he got there, but he managed to remain upright. “Should turn in before I do somethin’ I’ll regret.” He swiped at the audiograph, managing to turn it off on the third or fourth try, and made his way slowly to the door.

Jessamine closed the panel on Radanis’ side and slipped back through the passage to Luca’s room. She could hear Luca cursing - though the sound was much more indistinct than his rambling into his brother’s audiograph - as he came down the hall. She hid herself atop the wardrobe next to the door, waiting with leashed impatience for Luca to stumble into his room.

He discarded his mask once he entered, tossing it carelessly on the floor and kicking the door shut behind himself. The complicated series of movements nearly unbalanced him, and he staggered against the wardrobe, swearing.

“What the—” He straightened up, eyes wide, as he stared at the far wall.

At the empty frame where Guerra’s portrait had been displayed.

Jessamine dropped down on top of Luca. He was nearly twice her size, but with the element of surprise and his obvious intoxication, she took him to the ground. He laid there groaning, moving sluggishly to pull away as she arranged him in a seated position against the foot of the bed and swiftly bound his hands around one of the posts with a convenient length of silk rope. She pointedly didn’t consider what its purpose might be.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve wearing that mask,” Luca slurred, blinking up at her. “S’pose you fit right in with every other ungrateful bastard at this wake.”

Jessamine shrugged and pulled out her paper. _Why do you support Guerra?_

Luca squinted at the note. “Isn’t that the smart thing to do? She’s the Lady Regent, after all.”

_You’re financing her. Paying off the Grand Guard. Helping her hire Corvo’s assassin._

Luca shook his head. “Didn’t know about the Emperor until it was done. That’s why she needs my money - she drained her own coffers hiring that witch.” He craned his head back, staring up at her. “Wait— ‘Corvo’?” he repeated, eyes widening. “Outsider’s crooked cock, you’re actually the Masked Felon.” His tone was conversational rather than alarmed, and he looked more curious than anything. Then again, he hadn’t seemed too opposed to being tied up.

_Not going to call the guards?_

“Would that help? You slaughtered an entire detachment on Addermire.” He blinked slowly. “Why the notes? Afraid I’ll recognize your voice?” But he figured it out before Jessamine could decide how to reply: “Oh. You’re the Lady Protector. Sonia said she’d had your tongue cut out.”

Jessamine ducked her head in curt nod.

“Void,” Luca muttered, scowling as if the turn of events was a mild annoyance. “Here I was hoping you were going to spare me and were trying to hide your identity.”

_You can still walk away. Oppose Guerra in Parliament, stop funding her._

“I love her,” Luca snarled, the first hint of strong emotion he’d displayed throughout the one-sided conversation.

_She doesn’t love you and you know it. She’s using you._

“And what’s to stop her from getting rid of _me_?” Luca glared at her, the effect somewhat ruined by the way his eyes couldn’t seem to focus on her.

 _I’ll deal with her soon. You can claim your father doesn’t want to associate with her any longer if she asks._ Jessamine considered adding more about Theodanis, but thought better of it. No point in exposing her ally if Luca decided to betray her.

A shuddering breath escaped him. “You think it will be that simple?”

_Yes._

Luca sagged forward, held upright by his bound hands, his head hanging and concealing his expression. “I had a dream two nights ago. The same night the High Oracle was murdered— by you, I assume,” Luca muttered, almost to himself, his head still bowed. “There was a large wave approaching Karnaca from the distance. It was dark and writhing, audible from afar. But as it got closer, I realized it was a great swarm of rats, and the rushing sound was the scratching of their claws and that ghastly squeaking.”

Jessamine shifted her weight impatiently. There was no point in writing a reply if he wasn’t looking at her— and she wasn’t about to crouch down and shove the note in his face.

“They rolled over the lower districts without slowing, and I could only watch from the balcony as they swarmed up the slope and breached the gate and—” He shuddered again and fell silent for several long moments. Then— “All right. Yes. I’ll do it,” he muttered, looking up at her with red-rimmed eyes.

_Good choice._

“That’s it? Not going to threaten me or my father if I don’t cooperate?”

_Do I need to?_

The corner of Luca’s mouth twitched, a weak smirk that died before it could settle on his face. “No.”

* * *

Jessamine knocked Luca out and managed to drag him onto the bed, leaving him splayed awkwardly on top of the covers. She checked Radanis’ room for valuables, but there was only one portrait in his room - a Sokolov, painted when Radanis was younger, titled RADANIS ABELE’S INCONGRUENCE WITH TIME - and little else. She left it where it was - for the sake of the his remaining relatives - and continued searching the upper floor for anything useful as she made to the balcony overlooking the alley that she’d seen earlier.

The Heart started beating wildly against her chest as she neared that end of the manor. Apparently, there were several bone artifacts overhead. While Jessamine knew many of the nobility paid little more than lip service to the Abbey’s teachings and dabbled in magic with seances and other rituals as a pastime, she wouldn’t have expected it from Theodanis.

Then again, given how poorly hidden the relationship between him and Stilton was, perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised. But sleeping with someone of the same gender and keeping a collection of heretical artifacts were two different things, and a title or influence might allow a person to weather the first accusation, but the Overseers were— zealous in finding heretics. They’d go looking for proof, and judging by the way the Heart was straining in her grip, there would certainly be something to uncover.

It took some effort, but with the aid of her dark vision, Jessamine found the mechanism to pull down the stairs to the attic. She hadn’t seen anyone else nearby, but she ascended cautiously all the same when she saw the violet light spilling from the attic. Perhaps the shrine had been erected by one of the servants. It was well-tended, the rune sharing the surface of the altar with bone charms, coins and other offerings. The rest of the attic was coated in a thin layer of dust, but the path to the shrine and the shrine itself was spotless.

Jessamine studied the bone charms. They weren’t as aged as the others she’d come across, and their properties were all similar, primarily focusing on improving one’s stealth. A collection that had been assembled - or carved - for a specific purpose. Taking them was tempting— but whoever tended the shrine had obviously gone to great lengths to stockpile them. The charms also lacked any obvious corruption, so they hopefully wouldn’t drive the carver mad.

She left them but took the rune. It was as old as any others she’d found, and the larger pieces of whale bone seemed to exude more potent - and potentially inimical - magic.

“I’d ask if this party was everything you dreamed of, locked up in Sofocaverno for six endless months, but you don’t seem interested in the night’s revelries. Then again, you weren’t born to the nobility,” the Outsider added musingly, as if he cared one way or the other about the circumstances of a person’s birth.

Jessamine would have shrugged, had she the ability to do so. She had already known a good portion of the nobility was depraved, though even she wouldn’t have expected a wake to devolve as this one had.

“If only you weren’t so interested in concealing your presence, I’m sure the Heart could tell you all sorts of sordid secrets. Why is it that you’ll spare the nobles but slaughter the guards they employ? I guarantee many of the men and women indulging at this wake have done far worse than the petty guards you killed at Addermire. I suppose some lives have inherently more value than others.” He leaned forward, a cruel smile on his face. “But don’t worry; that’s what the nobles tell themselves too.”

There were plenty of things Jessamine wanted to say to _that_ , but even if she’d still possessed her tongue, she couldn’t have spoken in any case. But she was _nothing_ like the nobles who used their servants and other employees without remorse all to line their own pockets. The Outsider had even said himself why she hadn’t used the Heart to gauge the guests’ culpability— if she found one that deserved death, she’d feel compelled to check them all, and the odds of a body being found and the guards alerted would rise higher with each one. Hardly conducive to maintaining a low profile.

“You’ve handled this mission with a more delicate touch than I expected, Jessamine,” the Outsider drawled, putting more distance between them again. His dark eyes glinted keenly as he scrutinized her. “Leaving valuables untouched; sparing your latest target; letting those deserving of death escape with their lives— What’s brought this change of heart on? Not that I’m complaining. You continue to surprise me, my dear.”

The epithet made her twitch; the Outsider smirked, obviously catching the involuntary motion. Jessamine wanted nothing more than to slap that smug look off his face. The whiplash of his transition from accusatory to congratulatory only made her ire run higher, which could very well have been the Outsider’s intention in the first place.

“Or perhaps you’re treading lightly merely to stay in the good graces of your allies. I hope that isn’t the reason. It would be a shame if you had to curb your more murderous impulses for something as dull as earning the trust of a few men relying on you to restore their fortunes.”

Jessamine’s angry growl was loud in the silence as the Outsider disappeared on that parting shot. The deity was always infuriating, but he’d seemed to have made a concentrated effort to rile her this time. Taking a slow breath, Jessamine tucked the rune away and headed back down to the second floor. She didn’t check the rest of the rooms for valuables; the restraint that the Outsider had so lauded meant that she hadn’t used up any of her ammunition at all, so she wasn’t in need of more items to trade with Kirin, and if she came across another person, she wasn’t certain what her reaction would be.

* * *

The trip back to Lower Aventa and Thomas was uneventful. The guards at the Upper Station looked askance at her early departure but none of them questioned her taking the carriage down to Lower Aventa.

Thomas was quiet as well as they made their way back along the canals, but he kept sneaking glances at her whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. The third time she caught him at it, she gestured impatiently for him to speak.

Thomas ducked his head, chagrined. “How did you deal with Luca?”

 _He’s alive._ Jessamine had to wait until they passed within range of a streetlight to show Thomas her reply.

A blink was the only indication of his surprise. “That’s good. The Duke and Stilton will be pleased.”

 _Not the Admiral?_ She couldn’t help the sarcastic response, not that it was easy to convey without tone or facial expression.

Thomas snorted, then looked embarrassed. “I don’t think he really cares either way. We already have Duke Theodanis’ support, so it doesn’t matter whether his son is around or not. But leaving Luca alive will definitely make things easier for the Duke.”

That was more or less the conclusion that Jessamine herself had drawn, and while she didn’t require affirmation for her decisions, it was gratifying nonetheless.

* * *

Everyone was waiting for Jessamine’s return, including Emilia, who was sitting on the couch and listing towards Callista’s shoulder. She straightened when Jessamine walked in, all traces of drowsiness disappearing as she hopped to her feet, adjusting her slipping cap with one hand, and hurried over to Jessamine.

“You’re back!” She smiled up at Jessamine, her eyes bright under the brim of the cap.

Jessamine was conscious of the others’ eyes on her - checking for bloodstains, or perhaps for injuries - but she ignored them, instead smiling at Emilia as the girl led her to the couch.

 _You should be in bed._ Not that Jessamine was complaining about the chance to see her daughter, but it was rather late.

“I didn’t want to sleep until I knew you were safe,” Emilia declared.

Jessamine nudged her shoulder against Emilia’s. _Here I am. Safe and sound._

Callista cleared his throat, tipping her head in the direction of Theodanis and Stilton when Jessamine glanced at her over Emilia’s head. The lovers’ tension was palpable, though all of the assembled Loyalists seemed to be waiting for word of Luca’s fate.

Jessamine pulled out the note she’d composed on the boat ride back to Batista and handed it to Callista. She’d intended to show them immediately, but Emilia’s presence had been unexpected. Not unwelcome - Jessamine wanted to see her, and would have checked on her room after she was done reporting her success - but not planned for either.

_Luca lives. I told him what would happen if he continued to support Guerra, who was just using him for money. He agreed to stop._

Theodanis sagged against Stilton, relieved. “Thank goodness,” he breathed out shakily, turning to look at Jessamine. “ _Thank you._ ”

“Jessamine.” Emilia tapped the back of her left hand to gain her attention; it made Jessamine flinch, gladder than ever for the gloves that she wore to hide the Outsider’s mark. “Do you have time for a bedtime story?”

Jessamine nodded, then froze. She could hardly read to Emilia. Judging by the stricken expression on Emilia’s face, she had forgotten as well.

“I’ll read it and you can listen,” Emilia said determinedly, slipping her hand into Jessamine’s. “And then you go to bed too. You look tired.” She stood, tugging at Jessamine and looking pointedly at the door.

“I think we’ve heard enough,” Theodanis said kindly. “Unless there’s something pressing you need to tell us?”

Jessamine shook her head, and followed Emilia out of the room.

* * *

Jessamine woke the following morning - closer to noon, if not already after, in truth - feeling refreshed. Guerra was the only obstacle to returning Emilia to the throne that remained, and Jessamine knew the Palace’s layout like the back of her hand. Even if Guerra had increased security or hired additional guards, Jessamine was confident she could infiltrate and kill the traitorous Spymaster.

A loud, brisk knock at the door interrupted her musings. “Jess?” Daud’s voice filtered through the door. “Can I come in?”

Jessamine glared at the door and rose, pulling her coat on over her nightgown.

Daud didn’t even have the grace to look sheepish when she yanked the door open, not bothering to conceal her annoyance. In fact, he looked entirely too grave considering how close they were to unseating Guerra; it could have just been his face, but the dread beginning to coil in the pit of her stomach suggested otherwise.

Wordlessly, he handed her a copy of the morning’s Karnaca Chronicle, folded so the main headline was visible.

MASSACRE AT ABELE ESTATE


	8. calumny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **calumny**  
>  _noun_  
>  1\. a false and malicious statement designed to injure the reputation of someone or something.

“You said you spared him!” Theodanis’ hoarse voice reached Jessamine’s ears before she laid eyes on him, halfway out of his seat but restrained by Stilton’s hand on his arm. Stilton didn’t look much happier than his lover, however.

_I did._

“Then explain this!” Theodanis thrust another copy of the Chronicle at her. “Or the broadcasts?!”

 _I didn’t do it,_ Jessamine insisted, glancing to Curnow and Callista to gauge their reactions. The young woman was difficult to read, but her uncle looked at least partially convinced of Jessamine’s guilt, which did little to improve her mood.

“Why would Lady Jess lie about Luca?” Daud spoke up from beside her. “It would be exposed as soon as the news broke.”

“There was no blood on her clothes either,” Callista said, casting an apologetic glance Jessamine’s way. “The article makes what happened sound like a bloodbath. Someone else must have done this.”

 _Thank you._ Jessamine glared at Theodanis and Stilton; the Duke in particular did not look appeased.

“Well, you can hardly blame me for jumping to conclusions after what you did on Addermire!”

 _They deserved it,_ Jessamine retorted, her own ire rising in the face of Theodanis’ continued anger.

“Let’s not lose our heads,” Curnow began uneasily. “We’re so close—”

“No, I want to hear this— read it, rather.” His tone fairly dripped with contempt, and Theodanis met her glare without flinching. “Please, enlighten me. How did an _entire detachment_ of the Grand Guard deserve to die?”

Her hand shook as she scored the words into the paper savagely enough that it nearly tore. _I take it you already understand why Radanis deserved what he got._

The Duke’s face darkened even further. “How dare—”

“Jessamine?” Emilia stood in the doorway, a ragged doll that Cecelia had produced after the young girl’s arrival clutched in one hand. With her eyes wide and lower lip jutting out just slightly, she looked on the verge of tears. Only Jessamine - intimately familiar with Emilia’s crocodile tears - knew otherwise. “I heard shouting.”

“Lady Emilia,” Callista murmured, rising. “Perhaps we ought to—”

“Why are you shouting at Jessamine?” Emilia asked, turning the full brunt of her bright eyes on Theodanis. “You sound like that nasty Radanis.”

The words hit home; Theodanis flinched hard.

In spite of herself, Jessamine was reluctantly impressed. Emilia had always had a mischievous streak, but she’d never displayed this kind of manipulation before. Jessamine wasn’t certain if she liked it, as useful as it was proving now.

“Lady Jess and I were discussing the morning paper,” Theodanis said stiffly, unresisting as Emilia padded over to take the edition of the Chronicle from him. She frowned in concentration as she read the headline.

“Did you do it?” Emilia asked at length.

Jessamine shook her head.

Emilia turned back to Theodanis. “Jessamine didn’t do it.”

“That was not the only topic of discussion.”

Emilia raised her chin - a gesture that was all Corvo. He could be stubborn when he wanted to, and Emilia had inherited that same stubbornness. “The guards at Addermire, you mean.”

“Yes. I’m certain you saw the bodies—”

“Theo,” Stilton murmured uncomfortably.

“I didn’t. Jessamine must have hidden them. And she didn’t kill all the guards either,” Emilia added. “Which means the ones she did kill were bad, and she left the good ones alive.”

A muscle in Theodanis’ jaw jumped as he met Emilia’s gaze. “I find it difficult to believe that more than a score of the Grand Guard were ‘bad’, Lady Emilia.”

“I heard some of them talking about it when they thought I was asleep,” Emilia said in an eerily blank tone. “About how no one came to look if there were screams, because everyone locked up in Addermire was crazy and they screamed for no reason anyway. Or how they could slip something into the food and the patient would go to sleep and they wouldn’t know anything had happened when they woke up.”

Theodanis paled considerably as Emilia spoke, but so had most of the other Loyalists. Jessamine felt sick and angry all over again; she’d already known, but the fact that the guards had felt bold enough to discuss such things within earshot of her daughter—

Jessamine had never been one to relish the suffering of others, and six months in Sofocaverno had only reinforced that, but the deaths of those guards had been far too swift. She took a slow breath, forcing her face into some semblance of neutrality, conscious of Emilia’s gaze upon her. Emilia, who was always watching Jessamine, and learning from her actions.

 _Any other questions, Your Grace?_ The message skirted the edge of civility, but Jessamine couldn’t bring herself to be entirely diplomatic with him.

“No,” he murmured. He looked devastated, his anger drained away in the face of Emilia’s cool recitation of the guards’ crimes to leave behind only grief. “Lady Emilia— It wasn’t like that when I was director, I swear to you.”

Emilia gazed up at him for several seconds. “I believe you,” she said at length. “And I am sorry for your loss. I never met Luca, but Radanis always complained about him, so— I think he probably wasn’t all bad.”

Theodanis nodded mutely.

Emilia took Jessamine’s hand. “Are you hungry? It’s almost lunchtime, and you’re not even dressed, Jessamine. _I_ wasn’t allowed to sleep in.”

Jessamine rolled her eyes, but she smiled back and allowed Emilia to lead her out of the sitting room.

* * *

The Loyalists reassembled in the sitting room a few hours later. Theodanis and Stilton were absent - the Duke was away dealing with the fallout of last night’s attack, and Stilton had gone with him for emotional support - but Callista, her uncle, Daud and Jessamine were all there. Emilia was playing hide and seek with Cecelia who, according to Emilia, was even better at the game than Jessamine herself. The fact didn’t surprise her; Cecelia had light feet, and seemed to possess an uncanny knack for escaping notice when there was a particularly unpleasant chore that needed doing.

“I’ll cut to the heart of the matter,” Daud said as soon as the four of them were seated. “Lady Regent Guerra is all that stands between Emilia and the throne. The plan was for Jess to sneak into the Palace and eliminate her, but new information has come to light.”

Jessamine frowned at him, but he gestured to Callista. The Oracular Sister smiled wanly; her face was pale, and she looked almost as poorly as she had when Jessamine had first brought her back to the manor.

“I looked into the Void,” she explained. “I wanted to know what we should expect in the coming days. Looking into the Void is an imprecise art at best, but the vision I had today was even more distorted than usual. I tried to focus on the Palace, but I— could not. All I saw was Guerra leaving the Palace with a squad of the Grand Guard; I heard her say she would return to her family home to mourn Luca.”

 _That’s strange, considering she was using Luca for his money._ The Heart had even confirmed that Guerra felt nothing but contempt for him; Jessamine might have doubted the word of Luca’s father, but the Heart wouldn’t lie to her.

Callista nodded, looking as troubled as Jessamine felt. “I know. But that’s what I heard, and it was definitely her voice; I’ve heard her speak on one of the visits she paid to Somonos Outlook, and on the broadcasts.”

Jessamine tapped her pen against the paper, then wrote, _I’ve been to her home once. It isn’t that large. If Guerra is there, I’ll find her._

“I asked a few of the guards I knew I could trust when Callista mentioned it to me,” Curnow added. “Guerra is definitely at her home in the Palace District. And they also mentioned that there were some kind of preparations being made at the Palace. But none of them are assigned there, so they didn’t know for what.”

Why would Guerra have the Palace prepared for some event and then leave? It didn’t make sense. _Perhaps it’s for Emilia’s ascension._

That drew a chuckle from the subdued group. “Would save some time,” Daud said. “But we’ll have Emilia on the throne before the week is out, as soon as Guerra is out of the picture.”

_I should get going then._

* * *

Jessamine set out on her final mission as soon as the sun slipped below the horizon.

Thomas seemed subdued as he took her towards the Palace District, but the same could have been said about everyone else in the manor. The pall of Luca’s murder and the suspicion it had brought on had lingered long after Jessamine’s innocence in the matter had been agreed upon. And whether Stilton and Theodanis even believed her was another story. There was obviously some lingering unease regarding how she’d carried out her previous missions.

But Jessamine couldn’t afford distractions. As she disembarked from the skiff, waving a half-hearted goodbye to Thomas, she realized that security was even tighter than it had been in the Aventa Quarter. It seemed that even without Luca’s coin paying the Grand Guard, they were still out in force - tallboys, watchtowers and regular guardsmen were all visible on the main avenue.

Given that her view was partially obscured by the massive sequoia growing in the middle of the street, there were probably even more guards that she couldn’t see. Most of the greenery growing throughout the city had been cultivated for a specific purpose, and this one was no different. But unlike the other trees, which were concentrated in specific areas, this one stood alone. Formally recognized as the Sequoia Regnant, it predated the Empire of the Isles, or so the legend went; it had been planted by some long-forgotten ruler of Serkonos, from before the first Emperor, when the Isles had been disparate entities.

Corvo had only been the second Attano Emperor; the dynasty was still young, newly-inherited after a bitter succession struggle following the assassination of the last Kastillan Emperor, but Jessamine was determined that it would not fail. Emilia would return to the throne, and Jessamine would do everything in her power to keep her there.

Guerra’s house sat at the end of a road off the main street. Her family did not have the grand history of the imperial Attanos or the Abeles, who had done much to build Karnaca into the city it was now; the Guerras’ title was a new and relatively weak one. Their power came from influence - influence that had allowed Sonia to secure the position of Spymaster for herself. That wasn’t to say she hadn’t deserved the appointment - she had seemed an exemplary Spymaster up until she’d betrayed Corvo. Jessamine still didn’t know what could have driven Guerra to it, beyond greed.

Perhaps she would ask, before she ended Guerra’s life.

Jessamine lingered in a shadowed alley close to the dock, studying the patrols’ movements. The watchtower was predictable, at least, but the tallboys and other guards were less reliable. The former seemed to have a set area to watch over, but moved about it seemingly at random; and the guards stopped often to chat or relieve themselves or take a smoke.

Even here, the plague’s grip on Karnaca was obvious. The dumpster at the end of the alley had several shrouded bodies thrown into it, and she could hear some guards cursing a few blocks down as they drove back a swarm of rats. Most of the buildings on the fringes of the district seemed to be quarantined as well, some from the plague and others from bloodfly infestations.

Her best bet was to move above the street as much as possible. Even if the tallboys spotted her, she would only have them and the watchtowers to contend with; by the time the regular guards reached her position, she would be long gone. With that thought in mind, Jessamine slipped into the quarantined apartment building beside her. The Heart had pointed out a bone artifact inside, and Jessamine couldn’t force herself to pass up the chance to increase her collection of runes or that a bone charm might grant a beneficial boost. Some of them were useless, but others allowed her precious benefits that could be the difference between life and death.

The tenement had only been infested with bloodflies, not victims of the rat plague, and so wooden barricades warning of the pests had merely been left before the entrances. It was easy to bypass them and gain entry to the deserted ground floor.

There was a nestkeeper tending the nests within the apartment on the next floor, of course, but Jessamine was prepared for that eventuality this time and choked the poor man out before he even knew she was there. According to the Heart, he’d been a well-meaning physician hoping to study and cure the very condition that now afflicted him, so Jessamine laid him carefully on the dirty cot lying in one corner before turning to the task of exterminating the nests in his apartment.

A single fragment of valuable blood amber in the nest that had been erupting out of a broken display case suggested it had been the oldest hive and perhaps the origin of the infestation. Though she had to wonder how the display case had broken; surely the physician would have been exceedingly careful. That he had been brought low by the creatures he’d tried to study was cruel, but hardly unexpected in this world. The only justice that existed was meted out at the point of a blade or the stroke of a pen, often wielded on a whim; fairness had nothing to do with it.

Jessamine sighed and moved on to the next floor, which had been crudely barricaded with furniture and haphazardly-nailed boards. But the blockade only extended a foot or so above her head, leaving a space below the ceiling for her to crawl through and emerge on the other side. Eerie violet light that was becoming all too familiar spilled through the crack beneath the door of the next apartment. She sighed once more, not particularly interested in seeing the Outsider again, and peered through the walls with her dark vision. A skinny figure paced agitatedly back and forth before the glowing outline of a rune.

Jessamine weighed how much she wanted the rune against the annoyance of dealing with the apartment’s inhabitant and seeing the Outsider again. But there were still a number of powers that she had not yet gained access to, which could only make the trials ahead of her much easier, so it really wasn’t a hard choice to make at all.

“It’s _mine_!” The shout startled Jessamine, audible even through the wall. “Mine. No one can take it from me!”

That was promising.

Jessamine bit back another sigh and pushed open the window at the end of the landing. The apartment’s balcony was well within range of her blink, and the doors had been destroyed, allowing entry. She crouched behind the wall, waiting for the woman to turn her back so Jessamine could sneak inside without being detected.

The apartment was sparsely furnished aside from the shrine in pride of place at the centre of the living space, leaving Jessamine few options for hiding. The woman’s pacing was fairly regular, but she was muttering to herself and there was a feral look about her that suggested trying to predict her reactions would be uneasy.

How to deal with her? Jessamine aimed the Heart in the woman’s direction and squeezed.

“Her younger brother started coughing the day she brought the rune home,” the Heart whispered. “The rest of her family soon followed. She believes she found a talisman that keeps her safe.”

Jessamine grimaced and tucked the Heart away again. She somehow doubted that the rune had stopped the woman from contracting the plague, but it felt wrong to steal the thing from the woman if it gave her comfort. She ducked hastily around the corner again as the woman suddenly wheeled back around, practically throwing herself at the foot of the shrine. Her hands traced restlessly over the rune.

“No one will take you from me. Not that nasty doctor, or any of the other nosy neighbours,” she cooed.

That answered the question of whether Jessamine should steal the rune or not, and also how to deal with the woman. She blinked behind her, slitting her throat with brutal efficiency. Something made her angle the body aside, so the spray of blood splattered across the floor and missed the shrine completely. It wasn’t reverence or anything approaching respect for the Outsider, or so she told herself - she simply didn’t want to deal with blood on the rune.

“An interesting choice as always, Jessamine,” the Outsider murmured when she picked up the rune. “I wonder if you will ever succumb to the siren’s song you mortals seem to hear from the runes?”

The thought had occurred to her. The Outsider himself did not seem to be the malevolent force the Overseers preached against, but there was no denying the effects exposure to the runes and bone charms dedicated to him seemed to have on some people. As far as Jessamine could tell, she was unchanged by their influence, but she wouldn’t necessarily be aware of any such changes either.

“Perhaps you will,” the Outsider mused, staring into the middle distance. It was a relief to be freed from his dark, piercing gaze. “But then, perhaps not. Perhaps a stray bullet, or a blade turned aside too late will end you tonight. Or perhaps you will live a long life and watch your daughter grow tall and strong and die of old age with Emilia at your side.

“The traitor who tried to usurp the Emperor’s throne awaits you; I wonder if you’ll find the answers that you seek with the Lady Regent. She knows you’re coming, and she’s tried to make her peace with that. But how will you deal with her— the edge of a blade, or a more delicate touch? For all the good the softer approach did her lover.” The Outsider fell silent, a smirk fixed firmly upon his features. “I’ll be watching with great interest, Jessamine.”

She sucked in a breath, and another, as her awareness of the apartment returned. The floor shook as a tallboy marched past, the clanking of massive stilts audible even several stories up. As the steps faded, Jessamine could hear the rattling whine of the watchtower sweeping its spotlight back and forth across the main intersection.

Dwelling on the Outsider’s cryptic words would only infuriate her, so she pushed the deity and his smug smirks from her mind. She needed to focus on evading the frankly ridiculous security and reaching Guerra. The traitor wasn’t going to kill herself.

* * *

The trip along the main street wasn’t a simple one, but Jessamine managed to make it unseen by staying as high above the ground as she could.

Crossing the wide avenue was made easier by the platform raised partway up the Sequoia Regnant, which allowed her to evade the watchtower’s searchlight behind its massive trunk. She had always viewed the tree as a bit of a nuisance - beautiful, certainly, but the amount of attention lavished upon it by all classes of citizen had struck her as ridiculous. People visited it to touch the trunk, which had been worn smooth in a ring around its base, and cared more for its wellbeing than they did for the poor. But it helped her now, and she couldn’t help a lessening of her ambivalence toward it.

Once Jessamine reached the other side of the street, she was able to slip past all of the security crowding the way to the Palace proper through a combination of rooftops, balconies and conveniently exposed ventilation and drainage systems.

The street that Guerra’s house was located on was patrolled only by a single squad of the Grand Guard, which was— strange, but Jessamine wasn’t about to complain. Several of the homes here had been quarantined as well, leaving them dark and providing plenty of shadows for her to slip through to reach Guerra’s residence. It was a large house, and the most impressive on the street, but it paled in comparison to the Abele estate, or even Stilton’s gaudy manor.

Most of the rooms were dark, but light streamed from the windows along the top storey. Crouched atop the gatepost, Jessamine watched as a servant exited the side door.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t stay, Rosa?” the young woman asked, pausing just beyond the threshold. She spoke quietly, but the house’s isolation meant the racket from the main street wasn’t audible, and allowed even soft voices to carry.

“Go, Sara. The Lady Regent’s in a strange mood. Angelo and I can take care of things for the night,” Rosa, an older woman - the housekeeper, perhaps - assured her. “Here’s a key— just let yourself in tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you,” Sara murmured, tucking the key into a pocket. She tugged her hood more securely around her face and hurried toward the street.

Jessamine stopped time as soon as Rosa closed the door and blinked behind Sara, careful to pull the key out of her pocket without actually touching her. She’d found out that touching a person brought them out of time with Jessamine when she first tried to choke an officer out; her sudden struggles had startled Jessamine so badly she’d nearly let the officer go.

She blinked behind the perfectly trimmed hedges as time resumed its normal pace, and Sara continued through the front gate none the wiser.

* * *

The house, like the street it was on, was strangely empty. Jessamine had expected to find at least a few guards on patrol inside, but it seemed as if Rosa had been telling the truth and she and Angelo were the only people present besides Guerra herself.

Jessamine found and choked out both of the servants, leaving their unconscious bodies in the small servant dorm at the back of the house. Walls of light blocked the staircases, but without anyone to guard the circuit boxes or power supplies, it was a simple matter to disable them. Jessamine rewired them, slipped through to the other side, then removed the canisters of oil. She didn’t want the servants to be harmed, although there would have been a certain poetic justice to Guerra vapourizing herself on the security measures she’d pushed for so hard.

Jessamine also passed several of the obnoxious red alarm systems, but she left those untouched; she had a single rewire tool left, and the only one conscious to pull them was Guerra. She would not have the chance to do so before Jessamine killed her.

Guerra was in her office at the top of the house. The room was a complete mess; books torn from shelves, files and documents strewn across the floor, paintings and other decor ripped off the walls or hanging precariously. The Lady Regent herself sat at her desk, a neat row of empty bottles of Orbon Rum lined up at the edge; the only sign of the order Jessamine had always associated with Guerra.

“I wondered when you would make your way here,” Guerra said. Her hair was in disarray - likely from when she’d destroyed her office - but the Lady Regent was otherwise the very picture of composure. There was a faint flush to her cheeks, however; that she was so put together after drinking that much alcohol was almost impressive. Guerra had never been much of a drinker that Jessamine could recall, but then again, there was so much Jessamine hadn’t known about her; Guerra could have been a closet alcoholic for all Jessamine knew.

 _Why did you do it?_ Jessamine had written that one before she entered the room. She didn’t want to take her eyes off of Guerra for a second, much less as long as it took to write even a short message.

Guerra sneered at her, but her gaze strayed to the painting above the mantel. It was of Guerra’s ascension, of course; Jessamine had seen replicas all over the city, as if Guerra had given them out to everyone. It was just about the only part of the office that hadn’t been thoroughly trashed. When Jessamine was done with her, she’d check the painting first.

A sigh drew Jessamine’s full attention back to Guerra. “What does it matter? You’re too late. Even when you showed up two fucking days early, you were too late. Corvo was always going to die.” It was a shock to hear the normally civilized Guerra swearing, but that soon faded as Jessamine’s anger rose. How dare Guerra even say Corvo’s name—

Jessamine blinked forward, relishing Guerra’s startled gasp, and swept the empty bottles aside with a single shove. They shattered loudly on the hardwood floor. Jessamine slammed down the note, jabbing a finger at the first word. _Why?_

“Because he was a naive fool? Because he was born? I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

Jessamine snarled wordlessly.

Guerra stared back at her, seemingly unfazed. This close, the stench of the rum was tangible even through the mask, and Guerra’s eyes looked slightly unfocused. “It doesn’t matter,” she repeated. “It’s all over now. You’re too late.”

Jessamine backhanded her, the crack of leather against flesh loud in the otherwise quiet room.

Guerra laughed. It was a bitter sound that set Jessamine’s hackles on edge. “There it is,” she spat. “Corvo thought you were such a gentle soul, but we both know that was a lie.” Guerra leaned forward, uncaring of the blood dripping from her split lip. “I like you better without your tongue. Snarling and growling like the fucking animal you are.”

Her throat felt choked with all the words she couldn’t say, her mouth filled to the brim but empty, so empty. Jessamine wanted to be better, for Emilia, but she also wanted, _yearned_ to make Guerra suffer as she had suffered. Wanted to carve out her tongue and watch Guerra choke on her own blood; it still leaked from her lip, as red as anyone else’s despite her delusions otherwise.

Guerra moved first, pulling a pistol from beneath the desk. Jessamine dodged instinctively, putting distance between them, so she could only watch as Guerra pressed the muzzle into the soft skin beneath her own chin and pulled the trigger.

The gunshot rang in her ears. Guerra’s corpse slumped against the chair, blood and brain matter splattered across the large window behind her.

Jessamine stared at the body in shock for several long moments. She would never have expected Guerra to kill herself; had been planning, since long before her escape from Sofocaverno, to make Guerra suffer. The plan had changed after she’d rescued Emilia, but Jessamine had never doubted for a single instant that she would kill the Lady Regent.

And Guerra had ruined even that for her.

Jessamine turned away. As the ringing in her ears faded, she could hear shouting from the street outside. The alarm at the far end of it started going off. The guards must have seen the spray of blood against the window. She moved towards the painting; it pulled smoothly away from the wall on well-oiled hinges, revealing a safe. Unlike most of the others she’d come across, this one required only a key, not a combination. A quick search of Guerra’s still-warm body produced the key.

A stack of audiograph recordings, a journal, and a small pouch of coins awaited her. Jessamine took them all, taking care to tuck the recordings and the journal securely away, then headed to the top of the stairs. A splintering crash met her ears; the guards must have broken down the front door. Jessamine plugged the canister of whale oil back into the power supply, turning the Wall of Light at the top of the stairs back on, and returned to the office. The shouts of the guards grew louder, along with the pounding of feet upon the stairs.

When she peered out the window, she could see a pair of tallboys starting down the street, searchlights scanning ahead of them. But the street was otherwise deserted for the moment; it seemed the whole squad had come to investigate.

Jessamine jumped through the window, blinking down to the rapidly-approaching ground. The impact knocked the air out of her, but she staggered forward as the shards of glass rained down around her. As soon as she’d managed to get some of her breath back, she hurried towards the edge of the Guerra property. She slipped through the wrought iron fence into the yard of the next home, and continued in that manner back towards the main street, pausing occasionally to duck behind a bush or column as the tallboys or other guards passed. The bulk of their attention was on the street, or Guerra’s house itself; none of them noticed her creeping along the lawns.

As soon as she was inside the condemned tenement building that she’d used to climb down to street level earlier, some part of her relaxed. The rest still felt numb as she stalked through the empty apartment on the third floor, heading for the balcony that would allow her to travel overhead back towards Thomas. An audiograph machine sitting on the desk in the corner caught her eye, and managed to penetrate the fog that had come over her.

Jessamine pulled out the audiographs she’d taken from Guerra’s safe. There were four of them, three of which were labeled by date; the fourth was unmarked. She stuck the last one into the machine and turned it on.

“I can’t believe this,” Guerra’s voice filtered through the speakers. “How did I miss this? How could I have trusted the High Oracle?” Her voice shook with some emotion— fury, perhaps. Glass clinked, followed by a soft _pop_ and then the sound of liquid flowing. One of the bottles of Orbon Rum that Guerra had downed, presumably. She slammed the bottle down, loud enough that Jessamine jumped.

“Outsider’s crooked cock! I can’t believe the High Oracle— Fucking Beatrici!” Guerra continued in that vein for several minutes, cursing up a storm about the High Oracle and someone named Beatrici with deteriorating coherence. Jessamine had no idea what it all meant; she’d killed the High Oracle four days ago, yet Guerra had obviously made this recording earlier that evening. And who was Beatrici? The name was Serkonan, but Jessamine couldn’t recall anyone of import bearing that name.

Shaking her head, Jessamine tucked that card away and replaced it with the second newest one. It had been recorded the day of Jessamine’s escape from Sofocaverno.

Guerra didn’t sound quite so discomposed as she had in the previous recording, but she was obviously agitated. As Jessamine listened, her horror and disgust growing, she realized that Guerra had recorded her own confession— not just to Corvo’s murder, but to importing the plague rats in some twisted attempt to eradicate the poor. Corvo’s murder had merely been an unfortunate side effect brought on when Corvo had had Guerra investigate the plague’s source.

And she’d had the fucking gall to kill herself. Jessamine’s hands shook as she ejected the recording and returned it to the others in her pocket. She needed to get out of here, before she did something drastic. The rage coiling in her chest was almost overwhelming, building and building with no proper outlet. She wanted to kill something, but that was out of the question. There were too many guards around to go starting fights, and Guerra was already dead.

Jessamine forced herself into motion, climbing mechanically onto the drainage pipe beyond the balcony, and she didn’t stop until she was back at the boat with Thomas. He must have sensed her mood, because the bright expression on his face fell and the words on his lips died as she stalked onto the skiff. He piloted them away from the Palace District without a word, his usual easy conversation absent.

The silence was deafening. Jessamine didn’t want to hear Thomas’ aimless chatter, but she wished she could tell him about what had happened and all she’d learned. Jessamine should have been elated that Guerra was dead, even if she hadn’t been the one to kill her; it was over now. She’d even solved the mystery of where the plague had come from, and how it had spread so quickly, but Jessamine couldn’t bring herself to care. Instead, the silence seemed to fill her; she felt hollow and numb, her anger draining away to leave behind a heavy sense of foreboding.

* * *

Callista had managed to get Emilia to bed by the time Jessamine returned, a fact for which Jessamine was glad. She didn’t want to play the recordings in front of Emilia. The truth would come out, sooner rather than later, but she wanted to protect Emilia from the harsh facts for as long as she could.

There was an unspoken tension over the group when she walked into the sitting room.

“Is it done?” Daud asked gruffly from his customary position by the window.

Shoulders relaxed and sighs of relief escaped the others when Jessamine nodded, and Stilton rose, going to the sideboard to fix some drinks.

Theodanis clapped a hand on her shoulder, drawing her attention from Stilton’s back. “We could not have done this without you, Lady Jess.”

He hadn’t even been _involved_ until after Jessamine escaped Sofocaverno, but he was also the reason that Jessamine had found Emilia sooner, and if he was willing to put aside his grief and obvious distrust of her in favour of celebrating— Jessamine could at least be civil. Theodanis’ support in Parliament would be crucial in the coming days.

 _Your information was invaluable in finding Emilia._ She offered him a smile that sat awkwardly on her face, but the Duke didn’t seem to notice.

“You’ve done so much this past week,” Callista murmured as Theodanis went to get a drink, “I don’t even want to think about where I’d be now if not for you.”

“Yes, Lady Jess, thank you again for saving Callista,” Curnow added.

“A celebratory drink, Lady Jess?” The whiskey glinted in the lamplight, the tumbler almost comically delicate in Stilton’s thick, work-roughened fingers.

Jessamine shook her head. She drank when it was expected of her - was often able to get out of it by claiming she needed a clear head to do her duty - and on the rare nights she and Corvo had had alone, but she didn’t enjoy the alcohol. Besides, the taste of it was lost to her now, and despite the fact that Guerra was no longer in their way, the audiograph cards sitting heavily in her pocket couldn’t be forgotten.

Stilton looked crestfallen, and Theodanis frowned over his shoulder at her refusal.

 _There’s more I need to tell you._ Jessamine was hesitant to spoil the mood, but this information was important. Right on cue, Jaime shouldered open the door, lugging an audiograph machine in his arms.

“Thomas mentioned you wanted one of these, Lady Jess?” At her nod, Jaime carried it over to the low table at the centre of the room and set it down carefully. “Will that be all?” he asked the room at large.

“That’s everything, Jaime. Thank you,” Stilton said.

“‘Course, Mister Stilton.” Jaime ducked his head and let himself back out.

Most of the others seemed mystified by the audiograph’s presence, which was understandable. It wasn’t as if Jessamine could record anything herself. She tugged out the stack of recording cards she’d taken from Guerra’s safe, selected the one with the latest date, and put it in the player.

The room was dead silent by the time Guerra’s confession had finished playing. Callista, her uncle and Theodanis were pale with shock; Daud and Stilton looked furious.

“How could she,” Theodanis began, and stopped.

“You know how.” Stilton gestured wildly, heedless of the glass of whiskey still in his grasp. The liquid slopped over the edge, splattering onto the rug, but he didn’t seem to care. “She paid to have the Emperor murdered; as if the lives of a few poor immigrants would give her pause.”

“It almost serves her right.” Daud’s voice, rough at the best of times, was even harsher now. He took what remained of the whiskey from Stilton and drained it in a single swallow. “Arrogant, backstabbing—”

“What’s done is done,” Callista said. “I assume Guerra is dead?” At Jessamine’s nod, she continued, “Then she is beyond our reach now. What matters is that this will discredit her further, and help clear Lady Jess’ name.”

“Knowing how the plague reached Karnaca doesn’t give us a way to cure it,” Stilton pointed out. “Who knows how many more will die in the meantime?”

“Hopefully the geniuses downstairs are getting to that,” Curnow said, adopting the long-suffering tone he always took when speaking of them. “They were muttering about being close to a breakthrough and told me to go away when I tried to tell them Lady Jess would return soon.”

“You mean they managed to get any work done between all that bickering?” Daud sounded disbelieving.

 _I’m going to turn in,_ Jessamine put in. I have a lot to think about, and tomorrow will be busy.

“Oh, of course. Don’t let us keep you. You’ve been through so much,” Stilton said. Jessamine mustered a smile for him that felt as genuine as the one she’d given Theodanis earlier, and headed upstairs.

Emilia was asleep when Jessamine checked on her room, her limbs starfished across the bed and the blanket hanging half off the side. Jessamine crept closer and adjusted the covers, smoothing a hand over Emilia’s bristly scalp. Her daughter didn’t even stir, her breathing even and slow as she slumbered on.

Callista had mentioned nightmares, but Emilia seemed peaceful enough now. Hopefully returning to the Palace would help as well, although the unpleasant truths that were sure to follow - the revelation of Guerra’s hand in the plague, and her decision to have Corvo murdered, among others - would likely make things worse.

One day at a time. Jessamine bent close to press a kiss to Emilia’s temple, then let herself back out quietly.


	9. internecine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **internecine**  
>  _adjective_  
>  1\. of or relating to conflict or struggle within a group.

“Attention citizens of Karnaca! Today marks the first day of the reign of Empress Beatrici Attano, first of her name. Attention citizens of Karnaca—”

Jessamine stood frozen at the open window as the broadcast continued on a loop, interspersed with static from the faulty loudspeaker just beyond Stilton’s front gate. The words all blended together into an incoherent jumble of nonsense that pounded in time with the throb of her pulse. It didn’t make any sense. It didn’t—

Something thumped hard against the door to her room, startling Jessamine out of her twisting thoughts.

“Ow— Jessamine! Jessamine, wake up!” Emilia’s voice drifted through the door, following by brisk knocking.

Jessamine hurried over and wrenched open the door; Emilia, hanging off the handle, tumbled inside. Her eyes were bright as she looked up at Jessamine.

“Did you hear? Is Beatrici my aunt? Jessamine, did Daddy have a sister?” Emilia’s questions came too quickly for Jessamine to answer, even had she still had the ability to speak.

When she was certain the torrent was done, Jessamine shook her head. She didn’t know who Beatrici Attano was. Corvo had never mentioned a sister, or anyone named Beatrici, but Jessamine had only come to Karnaca when she was eighteen; Corvo had already been Emperor for several years before that. The name Beatrici wasn’t exactly common, but the only recent mention Jessamine had heard of it was in Guerra’s recordings.

Beatrici’s sudden appearance explained Guerra’s uncharacteristic departure from the Palace, and her drunken cursing of the name. But where had Beatrici _come from_? Had there been some kind of falling out between Beatrici and Corvo before Jessamine came to Karnaca? She couldn’t begin to imagine what would cause Corvo to never mention her, or how Beatrici could have been forgotten.

“Ah, Lady Jess?” Cecelia hovered uncertainly in the doorway. “The Loyalists are meeting downstairs, and they’ve asked you to join them.”

“I’m coming too,” Emilia declared, crossing her arms. “Maybe Duke Theodanis or Admiral Daud will know something about this.”

* * *

Emilia shrank back against Jessamine as they entered the room; everyone was speaking at once, voices and tempers raised as they gesticulated wildly. Even Sokolov and Kirin were there— arguing amongst themselves, of course. Despite requesting Jessamine’s presence, they didn’t seem keen to include her in the heated discussion that was taking place. Or perhaps they hadn’t even noticed her and Emilia yet.

“What do we do?” Emilia whispered.

Jessamine scowled and slammed the door behind them. Emilia jumped, but so did everyone else, and they shut up too.

 _What do we know about Beatrici Attano?_ Jessamine asked. _Is she legitimate? I didn’t know Corvo had any siblings; he told me he didn’t have any cousins either._

“He had an older sister,” Theodanis said slowly. “Her name was Beatrici. She was dedicated to the Oracular Order when she was just a few years older than Lady Emilia.”

_He never mentioned her._

“There was a great deal of fuss when Beatrici entered the Order. Renewed fervour for the teachings of the Abbey, things like that,” Theodanis said. “But Urratus and Paloma were careful not to mention her after that, and the rest of the court followed suit. Eventually, she faded from memory.”

Why had Corvo never mentioned Beatrici? Had he truly forgotten her? Jessamine pressed her hand against the Heart nestled in her pocket before she recalled herself. It wasn’t as if she’d ever spoken of her own older sister, or made any attempt to keep in contact after she’d left Dunwall. Or even tried to maintain contact after she’d been commissioned to the City Watch.

 _Apparently she’s still around,_ Jessamine wrote. _Did they cut off all contact with her after she joined the Oracular Order?_

Theodanis looked troubled. “As far as I know, yes.”

 _So she could have become High Oracle?_ Jessamine turned the note towards Callista.

“I— perhaps,” Callista murmured, frowning. “We never referred to the current - ah, former - High Oracle by name, although that is not the typical practice.”

“I painted the High Oracle’s portrait,” Sokolov put in. “There was a resemblance between her and Corvo. I thought little of it at the time, but they both have the same eyes.”

“Ah, yes. Lady Jess brought it in to trade,” Kirin said. “‘The High Oracle’s Regal Bearing’, wasn’t it?”

Sokolov sent her a furious glare before rounding on Kirin. “Jess _what_ —”

Curnow, seated nearest to the pair of bickering philosophers, rolled his eyes.

“Why was she dedicated to the Oracular Order?” Emilia asked, raising her voice to be heard over Kirin and Sokolov.

“Some prophecy that she would bring ruin to the Attano line,” Daud said impatiently. “I thought it was bullsh— uh, nonsense. But if some of their predictions actually are rooted in prophetic visions, maybe it’s not so absurd after all.”

“I did not hear word of that when Urratus sent her to the Order,” Theodanis said slowly.

“Guess my mother was higher in his confidence than you were.” Daud shrugged, seemingly unconcerned with the outraged look that earned him. “She’s the one who told me about the prophecy.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Stilton said. “Even if Beatrici was the High Oracle, Lady Jess killed her nearly a week ago.”

Theodanis’ expression softened as he turned to his lover. “Not necessarily. Beatrici had a body double; the girl was sent away with Beatrici.”

Silence fell as that sank in.

Jessamine felt— She wasn’t certain how she felt. Considering everything the Heart had told her about the woman she’d killed that night, and what she’d overheard, it was certainly within the realm of possibility that she had killed Beatrici’s body double. In which case, she had murdered someone who was possibly innocent, or at least as tangentially involved in the conspiracy as Luca, whom she had spared.

But it made sense, given what the Heart had told her about the woman, and what she’d heard her muttering.

“So,” Emilia began quietly, “was my aunt involved in my father’s murder?”

“I’m sure she wasn’t—” Stilton faltered when he saw Jessamine nodding.

 _I have another recording. Guerra mentioned Beatrici, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time,_ Jessamine explained. _I’ll be back._

“There’s _more_?” Stilton demanded, aghast.

Jessamine nodded and hurried back to her room, returning a few minutes later with the audiograph card. The machine was where they’d left it the night before, and everyone fell silent as Jessamine fed the card into the slot.

“I can’t believe this,” Guerra began. With the benefit of hindsight, it was obvious that she was furious. “How did I miss this? How could I have trusted the High Oracle?” The sound of her pouring a drink followed. When she slammed the bottle down, most of the others jumped.

“Outsider’s crooked cock! I can’t believe the High Oracle— Fucking Beatrici!” Jessamine listened more closely, hoping to glean more about Beatrici. Last night, she hadn’t paid much attention to Guerra’s breakdown - the woman had already been dead, and by her own hand - and Jessamine hadn’t thought much of the High Oracle, who she’d also thought was dead.

On the recording, Guerra laughed bitterly. “I should have known the second she told me her name. But I was already committed then. Fuck— Telling me to hire that assassin from Gristol should have been the first warning sign. I should have called the job off as soon as I met that witch!” It devolved into the vicious cursing that Jessamine recalled, interspersed with Beatrici’s name and title.

“This is unbelievable,” Theodanis muttered, once the recording was finished.

“No, this is good. It implicates Beatrici and Guerra. We can use it to discredit her as well. Most people probably don’t even remember her. We could even claim that Beatrici is an impostor,” Daud said slowly.

“If she helped kill Daddy, I want her dead.” Emilia’s cold tone chilled Jessamine to the bone. From the uneasy looks some of the others sent the young girl, Jessamine wasn’t alone in that feeling.

 _She should stand trial first,_ Jessamine wrote. She could certainly understand where Emilia was coming from, but the thought of her daughter ruthlessly ordering the death of her aunt - guilty or not - was disturbing.

“You don’t want her dead?” Emilia asked, the ice in her eyes thawing into confusion and hurt.

Stilton cleared his throat, averting his eyes from the pair of them. Everyone else did a good impression of not paying them any attention.

 _It could send a bad impression to kill her,_ Jessamine explained carefully. _People don’t know about her connection to Guerra. I’d rather expose her connection to Corvo’s murder and have her punished through a trial._ She deliberated whether to add that she would kill Beatrici if that was what Emilia truly wanted; the crux of the matter was that Jessamine didn’t _want_ Emilia to want that.

Emilia clutched the note tightly, her head bowed as she read the words. From this angle, it was impossible to read her expression beneath the brim of her cap. “All right,” Emilia finally said. “I guess—” Her voice hitched. “Daddy always tried to find another way to punish people. Besides killing them.” She swiped at her face with the end of one sleeve.

Jessamine knelt before her and gathered her into her arms, holding her close as her shoulders shook. Jessamine could still make soothing sounds, even if she could no longer speak, so she did. She couldn’t say whether they helped or not.

* * *

Jessamine spent the day with her daughter. Emilia made a few noises about reading the history that Callista had given to her, but her heart obviously wasn’t in it. Even when life had been normal, back before the first reports of the plague had come trickling - and then flooding - in, Emilia had never been the most diligent pupil. Corvo, wanting his daughter to have as ordinary a childhood as possible, had usually indulged her when she wished to play hide and seek rather than practice sums.

The Loyalists had dispersed to attend to what they could. Callista, her uncle and Daud departed to see what information they could gather from their contacts within the various institutions they had once been a part of. Theodanis was still dealing with the logistics of cleaning out his estate in Upper Aventa, which was apparently saturated in blood. Whoever had carved their way through the wake had made a mess of it; worse than the halls of Addermire, the Duke had confided in a dark tone. Stilton accompanied him and the natural philosophers had retreated to their basement laboratory, leaving Jessamine with Emilia.

Jessamine had her suspicions about who was behind the massacre, but she kept them to herself for the time being.

The others returned separately as the day wore on. Emilia did end up flipping through the history, but she made a frustrated sound and tossed it aside when she realized it didn’t mention Beatrici Attano at all. The issue of her apparent aunt was obviously wearing on her, though Jessamine couldn’t blame her, not when she felt the same frustration.

Daud returned later that afternoon, the severe lines of his face set in a foreboding scowl. “I found nothing. Gutierrez said the Navy would follow the rightful Empress, which means so long as Beatrici can prove her legitimacy—” He broke off, sneering. “Well, she won’t be around long enough for that to happen, so worrying will serve no purpose.”

“I thought the Navy followed you.” Emilia’s tone was level, but she looked almost accusatory.

Daud grumbled under his breath, too low to be heard; but the dark tone of his voice was enough to convey his meaning. “Guerra showed her true colours when she became Lady Regent,” he continued more loudly. “No one knows Beatrici Attano. No one knows she was connected to Guerra. And everyone who could say otherwise is dead; but fortunately Guerra recorded confessions.”

 _Perhaps if I broadcast the confessions, the Grand Guard will take care of Beatrici for us,_ Jessamine wrote.

Daud scoffed. “The Grand Guard? Accomplish something _useful_?”

Curnow walked in just in time to hear that last remark. The former Guard Captain raised his eyebrows, but ultimately let it pass uncontested. “I don’t have much to report, I’m afraid,” he said. “The guards I spoke with intend to follow Beatrici. They weren’t concerned with where she came from, or how convenient her timing is.”

“They should be,” Emilia declared, scowling. “They _will_ be. You need to make the Grand Guard better when you’re Captain again.”

Curnow blinked at her, but his startled expression quickly faded as he inclined his head. “Of course, Your Highness.”

* * *

In the end, none of the Loyalists had any really useful information to contribute about Beatrici. The consensus between Curnow and Daud was that the people of Karnaca were largely apathetic about their newfound Empress. If anyone remembered that she had been dedicated the Oracular Order three decades earlier, they kept quiet about it. Some people seemed optimistic that she might rescind Guerra’s draconian security measures, but they were hardly the majority.

Callista hadn’t returned by the time Jessamine left, which troubling in itself. She was their only real link to the Oracular Order, and knowing which way the Order was leaning with regards to Beatrici would have been helpful. At the very least, the lingering uncertainty would have been dispelled; instead, Jessamine found herself wondering if Callista had been caught and imprisoned again. Judging by the worried look on Curnow’s face, his thoughts had followed similar lines. But there was nothing for it.

As for the nobles— when Theodanis and Stilton had returned, looking drawn and exhausted, they reported that most of the nobility was similarly ambivalent to Beatrici. Those of them that were left, after the massacre at the wake. More than a few prominent families had lost their heirs, leaving behind those too young to enter public life and their aging parents. Jessamine could hardly blame them for their caution, but it irritated her that no one seemed overly opposed to Beatrici’s ascension.

All of the Loyalists agreed that Beatrici had to be dealt with before she became more firmly established, but they all tiptoed carefully around the leviathan in the room— how, exactly, Jessamine should deal with Beatrici. But perhaps Jessamine had read too much into the Loyalists’ silence on the matter; she’d basically told Emilia that she wouldn’t kill the woman, after all.

She turned her options over in her head as Thomas piloted the skiff towards the Palace District for the second time in as many days. Thomas was more talkative than usual, which grated on her nerves; or perhaps Jessamine’s uncertainty and anger shortened her patience. It was probably a combination of the two; Thomas seemed nervous, more than he had the day before.

He’d fallen silent by the time they reached the edge of the district. Jessamine disembarked as soon as they drew level with the docks; the sooner this was over with, the better. She wanted it _finished_. She could deal with everything that came afterward - she would have to - if only she could be assured that Emilia would be able to return to the Palace without issue.

Jessamine bypassed the security on the main road the same way she had the day before, but the path she’d taken above the streets came to a dead end a block or so before the bridge that led to the Palace proper. The bridge had been guarded by a sturdy metal gate and a varying number of guards, depending on the occasion, for as long as Jessamine could remember. She hadn’t allowed herself the distraction of looking to the Palace while she was on her way to kill Guerra, but of course this, like so much of Karnaca’s once-familiar landscape, had been changed as well.

Guerra had replaced the old gate with a solid metal partition similar to the ones used to quarantine the abandoned districts. An opening at its foot, wide enough to allow the passage of a rail carriage, was the only way inside, but the Wall of Light covering it was a considerable obstacle. It didn’t help that the guards were even more on edge tonight, and a large number of them were guarding the only way through to the Palace. Even if she took out all of the guards and other security measures, there was no way she’d be able to pass through the Wall of Light; the canister of whale oil and the control panel were on the other side.

Jessamine blew out a frustrated breath. There was a rail carriage station on the far side of the partition, but she couldn’t just hop on one of the carriages rattling along the tracks with the Wall of Light in place. She couldn’t go through, so she would have to go around. The roofs of the surrounding buildings were too tall or sheer for her to scale, even with the power of the Outsider’s mark, but she remembered that several of the tenement buildings overlooked the station.

The first building she searched was another dead end. Someone had bricked up the second floor landing, and for once there were no convenient balconies or open windows to allow her to bypass the obstacle. The windows were all covered in boards, and the balconies were all clamped shut. At another time, the thoroughness would have impressed her; now it was just another setback that Jessamine had no patience for.

She had better luck with the tenement opposite, though crossing the street was its own annoyance. The Sequoia Regnant was as useful cover as it had been the night before, although retracing her steps and picking her way along the exterior of the buildings on the far side was tedious. The entrances were blocked with red clamps, as were the majority of the balconies - except for the one on the top floor.

She climbed and blinked from one balcony to another until she reached the top. The apartment looked like it had been recently abandoned: the fruit in a bowl on the side table was unspoiled. There were signs that the inhabitants had left quickly - a stray sock in the middle of the floor, a cabinet door hanging open - but if anyone had been infected, it wasn’t obvious. There were no shrouded corpses lying in corners or other traces of blood.

The apartment across the hall was similarly abandoned. Flies and at least one rat had gotten into the meal sitting forgotten in the dining room. Jessamine gave the table a wide berth, wary of the bull rat holding court over the cold food. Its beady eyes tracked her progress, but once it seemed convinced of her disinclination to disturb it, it returned to its meal.

She made her way to street level, dropping from one balcony to another to conserve her magic. None of them were sealed shut, unlike the ones on the other side of the building, although all of the apartments were deserted. The entrance to the building wasn’t even blocked with so much as a bloodfly marker. Had the buildings been evacuated to provide a buffer for the Palace?

The thought did little to quell her anger, but the careless voices of the guards - only a pair of them - assigned to the station drew her attention before she could dwell on the matter for too long.

“—think it’s strange?” the lower guard was saying to the officer.

“What’s strange?” the officer asked, in a tone that suggested she didn’t particularly care for the topic of conversation.

The grunt didn’t seem to notice. “That the new Empress, uh, Beatrix—”

“— _Beatrici_ , you idiot,” the officer hissed. “Outsider’s eyes, the announcements have been playing all day, how can you fuck that up?”

“Yeah, her,” the guard continued doggedly. “It’s strange that she sent the Grand Guard away. It’s just the servants and her private guards up in the Palace. What does that mean for us?”

“They work for the new Royal Protector. That’s all we need to know,” the officer added pointedly.

“Easy for you to say! They were all women, so you’ll be fine—”

“That’s enough out you,” the officer snapped, and the guard fell silent. He stomped away to glare out over the bay. The officer remained by the station, standing at the controls. Her focus wasn’t on her assigned patrol, however; there was a distracted, unfocused cast to her face as she stared down at the panel.

Their inattention allowed Jessamine to sneak up behind them easily, and she stashed them on a second floor balcony before turning her attention to the bridge. The gate on the far side was shut, the gaps in its artfully shaped wrought iron bars covered by the metal panels that had become far too common a sight around the city. Aesthetics had always been Corvo’s concern more than they were Jessamine’s, but the effect was, frankly, hideous. Even someone as common as Jessamine could see as much.

Shaking her head, Jessamine started across the bridge, her boots silent on the cobblestones. She would have to be wary; if the guards had been speaking the truth a few minutes ago, the sentries awaiting her inside would be the most dangerous she had faced yet.

After all, they were most likely the assassins who had killed Corvo.

* * *

Bypassing the gate at the far side of the bridge was far simpler than getting around its counterpart. Jessamine blinked to the top of the wall, crouching in the shadow of a decorative pot atop one of the pillars. The plants within were all dead, their wilted leaves trailing scraggly and brown over the sides.

The sight of the Palace grounds drew her up short. The expansive gardens where Jessamine had played hide and seek with Emily were gone, replaced by concrete and more of the hulking security machines that had infested Karnaca as surely as the bloodflies and the plague; all because of Guerra.

But Guerra hadn’t known about every hidden way into the Palace, and with the powers granted by the Outsider’s mark, Jessamine managed to make her way inside with no one the wiser. The squad of the Grand Guard patrolling the yard had been made up entirely of women, as the lower guard had claimed. Which meant the assassins were all within the Palace itself.

The interior of the Palace was largely unchanged. The banners bearing the Attano crest had been replaced with the crimson Guerra coat of arms and paintings had been replaced with others more suited to Guerra’s tastes; the official portrait of her ascension hung in pride of place at the top of the grand staircase. Tempting as it was to rip it down, Jessamine left it where it was and took one of the smaller flights of stairs to the next floor. There were more servants than guards along that route, but that only made it easier to avoid them.

“The fireplace in the imperial suite was dead when I was checking the music room, but these— new guards won’t let me stoke it,” one maid murmured to another. Jessamine didn’t recognize either of them, but it was difficult to see their faces crouched as she was on the vents hanging from the ceiling.

“The new Lady Protector told us Her Majesty would be staying in the throne room for the time being,” the second servant said, though the tone of his voice suggested that he had opinions about that decision.

The maid wrung her hands together. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” she whispered. “Why would Empress Beatrici trust a Gristolian to be her Protector? After what that Jess did—”

The other servant shushed her, glancing up and down the hallway. “Just because the Lady Regent is gone doesn’t mean you can run your mouth like that. What if one of the Protector’s guards heard you? Use your head!”

The head in question ducked, the maid duly chastised. “Of course. I’ll be careful.”

Their voices faded as Jessamine continued down the corridor. The aspersions cast on her heritage rankled, but Jessamine was used to it; she’d heard much worse from nobles whispering behind their hands or her back. Gossiping servants weren’t worth her time.

Checkpoints and alarms had been set up throughout the main areas of the Palace, but her knowledge of the floor plan and the master key she’d taken from Luca allowed her to bypass them easily. Jessamine paused at the foot of the stairs leading to the top floor. The corridor was deserted, surprisingly; if Beatrici really was holed up in the throne room, wouldn’t she want more security surrounding her? Or perhaps she thought the people stationed throughout the Palace would be enough to protect her.

That didn’t seem quite right to Jessamine either, but she wasn’t about to complain about the lack of guards. Their absence made her bold enough to check the hidden room tucked behind a fireplace at the end of the corridor. Corvo had shown it to her a year or so after her appointment; as far as she knew, no one else was aware of the small chamber’s existence. They hadn’t even mentioned it to Emilia, though Corvo had intended to once she was older.

The task fell to Jessamine now, but for the time being the room remained _hers_ and only hers, with Corvo dead. Guerra did not know of it, would not have touched anything within its walls; Jessamine had avoided the imperial suite for that reason, unwilling to see how the traitor had put her mark on Corvo’s rooms. But the secret room would be untouched. A book - several of them, knowing Corvo’s penchant for reading - would be on the table, or the mantel, or fallen between the cushions of the couch; the scratchy recording of Gristolian music that Corvo had found for her might be in the audiograph machine; perhaps one of Corvo’s rich coats or jackets would be folded over some surface, the mantle of his title discarded in the privacy of their room.

Jessamine found herself standing before the fireplace before she consciously made the decision to move; a distant footstep spurred her into action, and she reached for the hidden switch without looking. She and Corvo had spent enough nights tucked away in here that she could find it blindfolded.

But the room wasn’t empty.

“Wait!” The assassin threw her hands up in an obviously placating gesture, eyes wide. “I have no wish to fight you.”

Jessamine’s blade was already in her hand, fury pulsing through her that one of _them_ had found her way in here, but as she scanned the room with dark vision - as she _should have_ before trying to enter - it appeared untouched. Tidied, the dust that would have accumulated over at least six months’ neglect cleared away, but otherwise it looked no different than it might have before— everything. No other assassins were lurking in the corner; if this was a trap, it was a poor attempt.

“I hoped that we could talk.” The assassin remained where she was, standing where she’d leaped to her feet from the couch. Her face was uncovered, unlike the others Jessamine had passed, her scarf tucked around her neck rather than over her mouth. She looked about Jessamine’s age, or perhaps a few years older. Her face was pale; nerves or natural colouring, Jessamine couldn’t tell. She tensed as Jessamine’s hand slipped into her coat, but her brow furrowed in confusion only when Jessamine brought out the Heart; as everyone else she had met, the assassin couldn’t see the cobbled-together organ.

She hesitated, the Heart pulsing slowly in her grasp. It felt wrong to use it on one of the people who had helped to still it, but— Jessamine needed to know. She hoped the scrap of spirit trapped inside the cage of wire and flesh would understand.

“Breanna Ashworth,” the Heart whispered. “She ran from a loveless betrothal to an old man and became an assassin.” The organ beat languidly in her grasp, its voice empty of any emotion but exhaustion. “She did not expect to find love,” the Heart added when Jessamine squeezed it again, “and was not even certain of its existence. But Delilah changed that.”

That was clear enough. Jessamine tucked the Heart away and motioned for Ashworth to move to the corner opposite the small table. As Ashworth did so, she switched her blade to her left hand so she could write with her right. She’d taught herself to wield a blade almost as proficiently with her left hand, but she’d never bothered learning to write with it.

 _How did you find this room?_ It wasn’t what she’d intended to write, but Jessamine was more upset about Ashworth’s intrusion than she would have expected.

“I—” Ashworth blinked. “I noticed that there was space missing on this floor. The exterior was larger than it was inside.”

 _Were you an architect before you became an assassin?_ The words were messier than usual, casualties of Jessamine keeping an eye on Ashworth as she wrote, and of her temper. People with their unique abilities didn’t need a weapon in hand to hurt or kill someone; though Ashworth’s hands remained raised and empty, the position might even make using one of her powers easier.

Her mouth twisted ruefully. “Certainly not. I was a not unskilled amateur in various arts. Sculpture, mainly, but I’ve always had an eye for the spatial.” She shrugged, a motion that she somehow managed to make graceful. “But I hoped to speak of other matters, not my sordid past.”

Jessamine narrowed her eyes. An interest in art would have been encouraged in a noble daughter, which fit with what the Heart had told her. _Then talk,_ she ordered.

“You must have seen my mistress’ face,” Ashworth began, her gaze returning to Jessamine’s face after she read the note. At Jessamine’s curt nod, the assassin continued, “Then you know who she is.”

_Obviously._

Ashworth winced. “What— What do you intend to do about her— us,” she corrected quickly, but not swiftly enough.

 _Why would I tell you?_ In truth, Jessamine hadn’t considered that she would end up facing her sister. At least, not so soon. She’d had vague plans to track Delilah down once Emilia was secure on the throne, but even those were nebulous at best, focused on _finding_ Corvo’s murderer, not the specifics of meting out punishment.

“She regrets it,” Ashworth blurted out, stunning Jessamine into complete stillness. “She won’t say anything to us, but it’s obvious.”

 _How convenient,_ Jessamine wrote with numb fingers, the words nearly illegible.

“I speak the truth. Though— she would deny it, if pressed.” Ashworth frowned.

Jessamine pushed her uncertainty away, focusing on Ashworth; Delilah could come later. _You don’t think I deserve my revenge?_

Ashworth stared at the words for several long seconds. “No,” she began slowly. “You would be more than justified in exacting revenge. But I ask that you reconsider all the same. Del— my mistress has tried to atone for what she did.”

Jessamine’s jaw ached from how hard she had it clenched. She didn’t want to know any of this; she couldn’t even be certain there was so much as a grain of truth in Ashworth’s words. _True revenge would be killing her lover before her eyes, Breanna Ashworth._

Ashworth’s surprise lasted only a second. “If that is your price for Delilah’s life, I will pay it gladly.”

Not for the first time, Jessamine was glad for the mask to hide her grimace. The threat had been— spur of the moment. Jessamine hadn’t meant it, not really, too angry and off-balance to consider how else to react. She hadn’t expected Ashworth to be so unflinching, though the Heart had basically told her Ashworth loved Delilah. Jessamine hadn’t thought that was possible; certainly, there had never been any love lost between them.

The relationship she and Delilah had shared had always been fraught. They’d met when they were around Emilia’s age; Delilah came to live with them after her mother’s death. Jessamine’s mother had been distant to her husband’s illegitimate child, and there had always been a rivalry between the girls.

But it had been obvious from the beginning which of them was favoured, and it had never been Delilah.

Euhorn Kaldwin had died when Jessamine was sixteen. Beatrix had passed a few years before, along with her unborn son. Jessamine and Delilah had entered the Blade Rondo that year, both of them turning heads as they bested more experienced and privileged contenders, reaching the final together.

Then Jessamine had won, and been commissioned as a junior officer of the City Watch, and Delilah— had disappeared. Back to their modest apartment in the Old Port District, or so Jessamine had assumed— when she bothered to spare a thought for her half-sister at all. Who knew what events had led Delilah here; Jessamine certainly didn’t.

But she could still recall the hatred in Delilah’s eyes as she gazed up the length of Jessamine’s sword poised at her throat; it was the same look she’d worn as she ran Corvo through. Her eyes - the Kaldwin eyes that the sisters had inherited from their father - had bored into Jessamine over Corvo’s shoulder; she hadn’t even spared the Emperor more than a glance.

It was the same hatred that had burned in Jessamine’s veins through six months in Sofocaverno, and the frantic missions leading up to finding Emilia. If Emilia had that same capacity for hatred, Jessamine never wanted to find out.

 _Fortunately for you, I don’t see any point to involving bystanders - innocent or otherwise - in our feud. Unlike Delilah,_ Jessamine couldn’t help adding.

Ashworth was skilled at schooling her expression, but the way her shoulders slumped suggested disappointment. “I understand,” she said dully, not meeting Jessamine’s eyes. “Please— make it quick.” But she sounded defeated more than entreating, as if she’d already accepted the inevitability of Delilah’s death.

She was so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she didn’t notice Jessamine folding her blade and taking up her crossbow instead. She flinched, a noise of protest and alarm escaping as the sleep dart sank into her chest; her eyes rolled back in her head, but Jessamine caught her before she could collapse entirely.

Jessamine left Ashworth splayed in a chair in a room nearby, _after_ checking for more assassins. She was close to the end, but that didn’t mean she could get careless. If Ashworth had wanted, Jessamine would be dead; or wounded, at the very least. The area was deserted for the moment, but she still moved with great caution as she made her way to the floor above.

* * *

The throne room encompassed the majority of the Palace’s top storey. The stairs up were unguarded, and there didn’t seem to be anyone around when Jessamine scanned her surroundings with her dark vision. No one was within range, anyway; Jessamine headed down the hall towards the antechamber before the throne room. Beatrici was supposedly holed up there, so that was the first place Jessamine would check.

No guards awaited her in the antechamber, but the way was blocked nonetheless.

A magical barrier overlaid the large double doors leading to the throne room, its shimmering outline casting a dim light in the otherwise dark antechamber. An elaborate diagram had been drawn on the floor in luminescent whale oil, symbols arranged in a pattern around a circle. A series of intersecting lines ran from various points at the edge of the circle, enclosing individual symbols. Jessamine recognized them - or at least she thought she did; they were similar to the design carved into the inside of the High Oracle’s mask.

When she tried to peer through the doors with dark vision, she found that she couldn’t. The barrier blocked her sight somehow, almost blinding the longer she stared at it. She blinked rapidly, dispelling the power. The entire arcane construct pulsed, the pale light emitted by the barrier and the whale oil growing brighter and fading in time with the beating of the Heart. Distracted by this realization, Jessamine almost failed to notice a single figure detaching from the shadow of one of the columns on either side of the chamber. She drew her blade instinctively as they came closer, walking with a confident gait.

It was the assassin. Delilah.

Jessamine pulled off the mask, tucking it away. There was no point pretending to be anyone else; Delilah was far from stupid and— she wanted Delilah to see her face.

Delilah’s smile was a brittle thing, sharp, with perhaps too many teeth. “Dear sister. It’s been too long since we last spoke. Although,” she added in that mocking way she had, that cruel lilt that had never failed to incite Jessamine to anger, “I suppose you can’t speak at all anymore.”

In the months following Corvo’s murder, Jessamine had convinced herself that she’d imagined her sister’s involvement. That it had been some sort of spell, a ruse to make her falter in her defense of Corvo; then that Ashworth was lying, or that the Heart was mistaken. But deep down, she’d known the truth.

Jessamine had nothing to say to Delilah.

That was a lie. There were a thousand things she wanted to scream at her half-sister, demands for an explanation, curses, threats - and she could voice none of them.

Jessamine’s grip tightened around the hilt of her blade, but she made no move toward Delilah. The arcane design lay on the floor between them, and no helpful intuition flowed through her mind to explain its purpose as it did when she learned a new power. Who knew what would happen if she stepped within the circle’s bounds.

“The Lady Regent told me you screamed so loudly after the torturer took your tongue.” Delilah smirked. “I wonder if you experienced even a fraction of the pain I’ve suffered since you _abandoned me_ —”

Jessamine was across the room, pressing Delilah to the wall, her blade tucked against Delilah’s throat, in an instant. Whether she blinked or crossed the room on her own power, she couldn’t say. All that mattered was that Delilah’s taunting words had _stopped_ ; in that suspended moment, Delilah’s mouth still twisted in her vicious smirk, Jessamine had to struggle to remember why she might not want to stop Delilah’s heart as well.

But— Delilah had yet to draw her own sword, and above the mocking smile on Delilah’s lips, her sister’s eyes were flat and unreadable. She wouldn’t bother hiding her hatred - had never tried to, had worn it proudly, _defiantly_ , when Beatrix and Euhorn were still alive - but she was trying to conceal something now. Ashworth’s words rang through Jessamine’s mind.

Jessamine fisted her left hand in Delilah’s lapel, jerking her forward— then slamming her back against the wall just as quickly. Her head met the solid stone with a crack; Delilah groaned, crumpling forward as Jessamine released her.

 _I never want to see you or any of your assassins in Karnaca again,_ Jessamine wrote as Delilah climbed to her feet.

Delilah blinked, staring uncomprehendingly at the message. Perhaps Jessamine shouldn’t have bashed her head so hard. The exact moment that Delilah deciphered the words’ meaning was obvious; her eyes widened and then she was shaking her head.

“I killed him,” Delilah said, as if that was reason enough to drive Jessamine to sororicide. Under different circumstances, it would have been. But Jessamine had no wish to stoop to the level of Beatrici and Delilah. She’d spilled enough blood on the path that had led her here.

Not that she was about to tell Delilah that. _And you regret it. Suffer._

Delilah sneered angrily - more reflexive than genuine - and didn’t rise to the obvious bait. Her lack of reaction was surprising, but it had been more than half a lifetime ago since Jessamine had really _known_ her. The anger faded from her face, leaving behind an expression that Jessamine couldn’t parse.

“Jess,” Delilah began, then— stopped.

Hearing the abbreviation of her name from Delilah of all people was almost enough to make Jessamine snap again; she was already second-guessing her decision to spare Delilah, and her sister hadn’t even left yet.

 _Don’t you dare apologize._ The stroke of her pen tore through the sheet, but the words were still legible.

Delilah bristled. “As if _I_ should be the one apologizing.”

Jessamine made a rude gesture; it was faster than writing out a reply to _that_ stupid claim, and articulated her own feelings on the matter far more succinctly than she could have managed with words in any case.

“Fuck you too!”

_Can’t imagine what Ashworth saw in you._

Delilah froze, her eyes riveted to the message. Her mouth worked soundlessly for several moments before she managed to murmur, “What did you do to Breanna?”

That settled any of Jessamine’s lingering doubts. The Heart hadn’t said a word about Delilah reciprocating Ashworth’s feelings, and Jessamine hadn’t wanted to use it on Delilah. If using it on Ashworth had felt like a violation, the thought of using it on Delilah had bordered on sacrilegious.

 _Nothing._ It was Jessamine’s turn to smirk. _Her neck might be a bit sore when she wakes up._

“You _bitch_ ,” Delilah breathed shakily, her obvious relief undercutting the words.

_I was deadly serious earlier. I never want to see you again._

Delilah nodded, all pretenses of animosity drained away. “You won’t.”

Jessamine held up a hand as Delilah made to leave. _I wouldn’t be upset if you did something about this._ She gestured at the arcane diagram behind her.

Delilah’s gaze strayed to her left hand, but she didn’t protest or ask as she approached the circle. “Beatrici hated Corvo worse than I hated you,” Delilah said, kneeling at the edge of the symbols. With her back to Jessamine and her head angled down, it was impossible to see her face. She tilted her head, studying the design. “Something about a broken plate, or some other equally ridiculous thing. It’s not as if he abandoned her like someone else I could name.”

Jessamine shifted impatiently as Delilah fell silent; as if Delilah would have done anything differently if _she_ had been the one to win the Blade Rondo. But her voice had been rueful rather than antagonistic, so Jessamine let the gibe pass unremarked.

Delilah reached out with her left hand. The mark flared visibly beneath the fabric covering her hand, and she wiped away one character in particular in a quick motion. She blinked away the next second, reappearing at another point on the outside of the diagram to erase another symbol, then a line, several times in quick succession. The luminescence of the barrier slowly faded as she worked, until at last it snuffed out entirely, leaving only the now-ruined circle.

“She doesn’t have a mark, but Beatrici is a true Oracle,” Delilah warned, straightening from her crouch. The diagram lay between them once more, the whale oil casting her sister’s face in strange shadows. “And— she was learning witchcraft from some of my own.”

_So she knows I’m here._

“She suspects, most likely. I understand anticipating people like us is even less reliable than the everyman,” Delilah added drily.

_Lovely._

For a moment, they traded smirks, as they only had in those days following Euhorn’s death. They’d been alike then, alone in the world with only their wits and the strength of their hands and the dubious connection of their blood to sustain them.

The Blade Rondo had brought all of that to an end, of course; what followed had set them on their respective paths. Diverging, never to meet or cross again— or so Jessamine had thought. Yet here they both were, bloodstained, on opposite sides and, somehow able to come to an uneasy truce that Jessamine could never have imagined would exist, even without the deaths that now lay between them.

 _Get out,_ Jessamine added before the moment could stretch on for too long. _Your lover’s in the first room next to the stairs._

Delilah nodded. “Protect this Empress better than you did her father.”

Jessamine bared her teeth at Delilah, an extremely poor excuse for a smile. _I will._

She pulled the mask back out, fitting it on easily. Strange to think that it had been less than a week since she’d received the gruesome skull; it settled like a second skin over her face now.

Delilah was gone when she looked around, and this time when Jessamine attempted to peer through the doors into the throne room, her dark vision was unimpeded.

A solitary figure paced within, fading in and out of view as they passed beyond the range of her sight, then returned. Jessamine checked the immediate area around the doors for traps - mines or tripwires or anything suspect - but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

She breathed out, and opened the door.

* * *

“Ah, Jess! I was hoping you would come to me.” Beatrici’s voice was warm, accompanied by a smile that seemed genuine. But something about her bearing set Jessamine’s hackles on edge. It was the same feeling meeting Beatrici masked under the guise of the High Oracle had always given Jessamine, but many times worse.

Unlike the antechamber, the throne room was well-lit, the chandeliers hanging at intervals from the high ceiling all illuminated. In person, there was no mistaking Beatrici’s relation to Corvo. She had the same eyes as Corvo, striking enough that Jessamine had noticed the resemblance from Sokolov’s portrait of the High Oracle. She also bore a strong resemblance to the body double that Jessamine had killed a few days ago, of course; the only real difference there was the particular shade of their eyes.

“You’re a difficult woman to find,” Beatrici remarked, arms spread wide as if she expected Jessamine to embrace her like some long-lost friend. Her clothes were rich— and familiar. Paloma Attano had worn that same outfit - and many others like it - for as long as Jessamine had known her. In mourning for her husband, or so Corvo had told her; Paloma had seldom spoken in Jessamine’s presence, and she had never addressed Jessamine at all.

Was Beatrici playing at mourning her brother’s murder?

 _I could say the same of you._ Jessamine watched her warily, but Beatrici made no sudden movements and maintained her warm smile.

“Those bearing the Outsider’s mark are particularly difficult to locate in the Void,” Beatrici said lightly, her gaze dropping briefly to Jessamine’s left hand.

 _And here I thought it was just the mask._ Jessamine had left hers on this time; she didn’t care to show her face to this usurper she barely knew.

Beatrici’s smile slipped, souring for a bare moment before the mask settled back into place, all easy geniality. “What would the Abbey do with the knowledge of your heresy, I wonder?”

Jessamine froze. Callista hadn’t yet returned when Jessamine left for the Palace District; if something had happened to her— If the Order had captured her again—

“What do you know of ruling?” Beatrici stepped closer, her expression earnest. “I have no heirs, but I would see the Attano line continue. I’d raise Emilia as my own, without the spectre of the Order or the Abbey hanging above her head. You’ve eliminated most other threats, and dispensed your duty admirably; none could argue otherwise. But Emilia doesn’t need an assassin.”

Jessamine sneered behind her mask, barely listening to Beatrici’s words. If the new Empress meant to bring the Abbey down upon Jessamine tonight, let her try. Beatrici would be implicated in the scandal as well; they would have to go through the group of deadly assassins patrolling the Palace below, and the ensuing conflict would given Jessamine plenty of warning of their approach. Beatrici’s decision to rely on such obvious heretics to guard her would come into question as well— No, it must have been a bluff.

_Why did you do it?_

Beatrici’s pleasant mask slipped, revealing the same fury that Jessamine could feeling burning in her own veins.

“He took _everything_ from me,” Beatrici snarled. “I was the firstborn, _I_ should have ruled! But instead, Father listened to some prophecy spewed by a senile old woman. I always knew something set me apart from precious _Corvo_.” She spat his name like a curse. “They were just waiting for an excuse to get rid of me.”

Beatrici paced agitatedly across the floor as Jessamine wrote her reply, halting to read the note when Jessamine held it up.

_How is any of that Corvo’s fault?_

“He _told_ them,” Beatrici hissed. “All the servants treated me differently. They doted on him and acted like serving me was a particularly odious chore! So one day, I decided I’d make them treat me the way I deserved. But Corvo saw, and ran to our parents—”

Jessamine had heard enough. As Beatrici continued to rant about the unfairness of having servants unwillingly wait on her and other petty injustices heaped upon her young shoulders, Jessamine pulled out her crossbow and shot the other woman with a sleep dart. Beatrici fumbled for her belt, but it was far too late; a moment later, she slumped to the floor. Jessamine could have caught her, but she let her fall instead. When Beatrici remained unmoving - aside from the steady rise and fall of her chest - Jessamine approached her.

Beatrici had been going for a knife hidden at the small of her back; its blade gleamed wetly in the light. Coated with poison, perhaps; Jessamine shouldn’t have been surprised that someone stone cold enough to help plot the murder of their brother would be willing to kill someone else with a poisoned knife, but somehow the thought of Beatrici doing her own dirty work still caught her off-guard.

After a moment, Jessamine returned the blade to its sheath before searching the rest of Beatrici’s prone body. A plain black journal was tucked into an inner pocket; the contents were gibberish when Jessamine flipped through the pages, pausing at random to see if anything made sense. It had to be the book Callista had mentioned when Jessamine had rescued her. She pocketed the journal, but left the rest of Beatrici’s belongings untouched.

Banners bearing the Guerra crest hung from the walls of the throne room as well; apparently Beatrici hadn’t had time to restore the Attano banners even here. Jessamine tore the nearest banner down and cut it into strips to bind Beatrici to the throne; Beatrici had gone to such lengths to secure the damn thing, it would be cruel not to allow her some use of it.

Satisfied that her bindings would hold, Jessamine left the room. While the throne room took up the majority of the upper storey, the broadcast room shared the space, though it was tucked away in one corner. It was slightly cramped, not originally intended to contain the various consoles and machines that could broadcast news and announcements across Karnaca. The Broadcast Officer was nowhere in evidence, but Jessamine had watched the equipment being set up often enough that she could figure out how to operate it on her own.

She played Guerra’s confession about the plague and Corvo’s murder first, standing in the doorway and listening with half an ear as the damning words played from every speaker. The rest of her attention was taken with watching for anyone coming to investigate. It was unlikely - Delilah had surely told her assassins that they were leaving Karnaca, and the servants would hopefully have the sense to stay away - but Jessamine couldn’t risk being caught unawares again. Once the confession had aired, she switched in the recording of Guerra’s vitriol towards High Oracle Beatrici, setting it to play on a loop before returning to the throne room.

Beatrici was still out cold when Jessamine arrived, and likely would be for a few hours unless someone intervened. Jessamine blinked up to one of the chandeliers, taking a few moments to find a position that wouldn’t set the light fixture off balance and more likely to fall down. Once she found a comfortable position, she settled down to wait.

* * *

It took the Grand Guard almost half an hour to reach the throne room. Nearly an entire squad - the same squad that had been patrolling the exterior of the Palace, given that they were all women - arrived to take Beatrici into custody. The officer shook Beatrici’s shoulder roughly, and resorted to slapping her when that failed to rouse her.

Beatrici jolted awake with a startled cry, staring with obvious confusion at the officer in front of her. “What—” She tried to raise a hand, but the strip of banner tied around her wrist drew her up short. She flinched hard, struggling against her bindings, an expression of dawning horror on her face as Guerra’s words continued to play over the loudspeakers.

“Beatrici Attano - if that’s even your real name,” the officer added in a dark mutter, “you’re under arrest in connection to the murder of Emperor Attano.”

“I— I’ve been framed,” Beatrici said with forced calm, rallying. “Everyone knows Jess Kaldwin murdered the Emperor.”

“There will be an investigation,” the officer agreed, “but your involvement in the former Spymaster’s conspiracy is obvious. You will be held at Sofocaverno until the full truth can be uncovered.”

“Wait!” Panic bled into Beatrici’s voice. “Where is she? Jess!” she shouted. “Jess—!”

But Jessamine was already slipping away, Beatrici’s desperate exclamations fading to silence behind her.

Corvo, her Emperor, lover, and friend, had been avenged; the people involved in his murder were either dead or punished.

All that remained was returning Emilia to the Palace, so she could take her rightful place on the throne.


	10. epilogue

A familiar blue expanse greeted Jessamine when she opened her eyes. It had been several months since the Outsider had last spoken to her; she’d almost thought that the supernatural creature was done with her.

That obviously wasn’t the case. Jessamine sat up slowly, determined to find the Outsider so that she could get this over with— but to her surprise, the Outsider was already there, hovering a few feet away. His dark eyes were fixed on her, an inscrutable expression on his youthful face.

“You truly surprised me, Jessamine.” It almost sounded as if he was grateful, which was offensive in a different way than his taunts and cryptic hints had always been. “It isn’t often that a story drenched in blood ends so— cleanly. Even rarer are the occasions when two of those bearing my mark part ways with both still breathing, never mind unharmed.”

Jessamine raised her hands automatically, then blinked down at them, surprised that she _could_ move. That was new.

“What is it?” The Outsider tilted his head, curiosity making him look even younger.

 _Were you watching me sleep?_ Jessamine signed.

The Outsider grinned, which was somehow more disconcerting than his awkward smiles and sly smirks. “I watch those who interest me for as long as they continue to do so, my dear.”

Jessamine fixed him with an unimpressed glare, though it had the opposite effect; rather than silencing him, the Outsider’s grin widened and - to her utter shock - he even began to chuckle.

The Outsider’s laughter - stilted and awkward, as if he wasn’t entirely familiar with the action - followed her into waking.

Black-eyed brat. Jessamine rolled over, glaring at the strip of lightening sky she could see through the cracked curtains, and tried to go back to sleep.

* * *

Emilia burst into her room what felt like a few minutes later; judging by the warm cast of the sky, it was still early.

“Good morning, Jessamine.” Emilia spoke slowly, voicing the signs as she made them.

Jessamine sat up, resigning herself to waking. _Good morning, Your Majesty._

Emilia pouted at the formal address, her hands dropping to her sides. “It is a good morning! I passed Thomas in the hall and he said Admiral Daud was back from his mission.”

That was good news; Daud should have information about what had transpired in the rest of the Empire while Karnaca was blockaded and largely cut off. Although—

_Thomas was allowed into the royal wing?_

“Well,” Emilia said slowly, dragging the syllable out. “Maybe I snuck out of my room, just to test the guards Captain Curnow assigned. I only made it to the public wing before they caught me! And that’s where I saw Thomas.”

Jessamine smiled fondly in spite of herself. In the months since they’d returned to the Palace, things had slowly settled down. They weren’t the same as they’d been before, of course; Emilia was even more stubborn than Jessamine remembered. She attended her lessons with similar diligence, only showing real interest in the history lessons taught by Callista - the youngest Vice Oracle ever appointed - and the sessions with the sign language teacher.

If only the rest of Emilia’s court was so enthusiastic about learning to sign. Most of them disdained the effort, barely listening to the interpreter they insisted Jessamine bring to Parliament, or demanding that she write out her words and then complaining that it took her so long to put onto paper. At least the Loyalists all tried, with varying degrees of success.

Emilia clambered onto the bed, snuggling up against Jessamine’s side. Her hair came nearly to her chin now, its ends tickling Jessamine’s neck as she pressed close.

“I miss Daddy,” Emilia whispered.

Jessamine’s arm tightened around Emilia’s shoulders; some days, signing seemed a better means of communicating than speech. Using signs, there was no damning catch to her voice when she replied, _I do too._

“I know.” Emilia toyed with the turned-down edge of the sheet, picking at a trailing thread. Calluses had begun to form on her hands from the self-defense lessons Jessamine had managed to wrangle her court into agreeing to. Jessamine’s weekly instruction was another of the rare lessons that Emilia truly seemed to enjoy. “But,” Emilia added, the sly tone of her voice stirring foreboding in Jessamine’s mind, “if you liked Daud, I don’t think Father would mind. I know I wouldn’t.”

Jessamine stiffened, her left hand straying to her pillow - and the Heart tucked beneath it - before she remembered herself. Huffing, she pulled her hand away to sign, _My relationship with the Admiral is purely professional._

“All right,” Emilia said, too casually to be anything but false. “But when I asked Thomas, he said Daud almost definitely likes you too.”

 _Isn’t it time for your lessons?_ Jessamine asked pointedly, ignoring the flush slowly warming her cheeks.

“I guess.” Emilia’s concession was decidedly unenthusiastic as she slid slowly off the bed. “Oh! But the sooner I finish, the sooner we can go to the reunion. It’s lucky that Daud got back today, just in time. Kirin and Anton said they were close to a breakthrough, so maybe they’ve finally found a cure!” She adjusted the shoulder of her nightgown and bolted from the room before Jessamine could reply, the door shutting with a snap behind her.

Jessamine waited for Emilia’s rapid footsteps to fade down the hall before reaching for the Heart. It pulsed slowly in her hands, the light flickering in time with its steady beating.

Stilton was busy setting the mines to rights, working with the other grudging owners to fairly compensate their workers for the risks and increased work they’d endured during the interregnum, but he’d somehow found the time to arrange for a reunion of the Loyalists at his manor that afternoon.

In truth, they were all busy with the task of rebuilding what Guerra, Beatrici and the plague had destroyed. Theodanis’ face looked older every day, the deaths of his sons wearing on him even as he presided over Parliament as the new Prime Minister. He’d decided to move to another property he owned in the Palace District; it wasn’t as opulent, lacking the history that the Abele Estate in Upper Aventa had in spades, but it also wasn’t stained with blood after repeated, concentrated efforts to clean its rooms.

Callista had constant bags under her eyes when Jessamine saw her - though Jessamine knew she’d see similar dark circles if she looked at her own reflection. The Oracular Sister had been held back by preparations the Feast of Painted Kettles the night that Jessamine had infiltrated the Palace; an inconvenience, but at least she hadn’t been in any danger. With the help of Beatrici’s coded journal and Callista’s visions from the Void, they were able to discern the candidate most likely to prove loyal to Emilia, and had installed her as High Oracle. That Kassandra Bianchi would appoint Callista as her new Vice Oracle had been an unexpected but welcome side effect.

Her uncle was similarly occupied with rooting out the corrupt members of the Grand Guard from those who’d just wanted to keep their head down and survive the upheaval of the plague and Corvo’s murder. Jessamine used the Heart on every guard Captain Curnow deemed fit to watch over Emilia; she knew the secrets revealed by the Heart weren’t always helpful or even relevant, but it put her mind at ease every time the guard in question didn’t turn out to be an aspiring serial killer in disguise.

Kirin and Sokolov had settled into an uneasy - and at times, literally explosive - partnership. But their new plague preventative, a complicated mixture of their individual recipes, was the most promising effort yet. They’d likely have a cure soon, though Jessamine doubted they would announce it at the reunion. They’d spread the word far and wide the second they cured the plague; neither man was sentimental enough to wait.

It seemed that Daud had had the easiest time stepping back into his former role. The Navy had remained loyal to him, _not_ Emilia, but he had remained loyal to Corvo and Emilia, so it wasn’t a problem. The only reason Jessamine kept an eye on him was the healthy paranoia the events of the rat plague had instilled in her, not— because of any feelings that crossed the boundary of professional.

As for Jessamine herself— Returning to her role as Royal Protector had been difficult. Suspicion still surrounded her, despite Guerra’s confessions and Emilia proclaiming Jessamine’s innocence; at the very least, no one had connected her to the Masked Felon that had terrorized Karnaca for those short, hectic days several months ago. Or if they had, they were intelligent enough to keep quiet about it. Jessamine kept the Heart close at hand, using it on those around her whenever she had the opportunity. Hearing its voice was comforting and painful in equal measure, but she still could not bring herself to give it up; asking the Outsider more about the cursed thing hadn’t even occurred to her earlier.

Jessamine stared down at the Heart, tracing her thumb restlessly along a twist of wire. She wasn’t ready to let go of the last trace of Corvo just yet. Perhaps one day— but not any time soon.

Corvo’s voice, worn by time, echoed in her mind.

“Karnaca’s wounds begin to heal; soon, they will be nothing more than scars. Time soothes all wounds, my love.”


End file.
